A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

of booty from further raiding. During the winter of 377 and 378 a fresh, larger
enemy force moved back into Thrace.
It was essential that the Romans used the campaigning season of 378 to regain
the initiative. By May, Valens had made concessions to the Persians and had
returned from Antioch to his capital Constantinople, but a sullen welcome from
the local population, who would have known of the devastation in neighbouring
Thrace, must have brought home to him just how vulnerable he was. (The
relationship between Valens and the inhabitants of Constantinople had never
been good, and an attempted coup by one Procopius in 365 had found
widespread support in the city.) The status of an emperor always depended
heavily on his ability to defend the empire, and if Valens was to stay in power he
had little option but to move quickly on into Thrace, where he began gathering
his troops as they arrived from the Persian border. Gratian had also agreed to
send men, but there had been a setback in his half of the empire. In February
378, one of the German tribes had crossed the Rhine while it was still frozen,
and there were rumours that thousands more Germans, the Alamanni, were set to
follow. Gratian could not leave his rear unprotected and the invasions took
months to repel.
By July, Valens was beginning to panic. Gratian, though still very
inexperienced, was proving an astute emperor. He made sure that his campaign
on the Rhine was reported as a series of steady victories and this meant that
Valens’ own image was all the more fragile. Valens was torn between setting off
on his own to secure a victory, and waiting until his nephew could arrive to
support him. As it was, he was swayed by faulty intelligence. Reports suggested
that the Goths had about 10,000 fighting men, but it was probably nearer 20,000.
Even so, this number should have been easily containable by Valens’ force of
30,000, many of whom were highly trained infantry. Fritigern, who had managed
to remain in command of the Goths, certainly knew how vulnerable he was now
that the Romans had assembled a proper army. He sent a priest to negotiate on
his behalf (the Gothic tribes had been converted to Christianity in the middle
years of the fourth century), in the hope that Valens would acknowledge him
formally as leader of the Goths and help him keep order over his unwieldy band
of followers, but Valens refused to meet the envoy. He had decided to upstage
Gratian and go for battle.
On 9 August 378, the Roman army left its baggage outside the city of
Adrianople and set off across the plain in the summer heat. It took them eight
hours to reach the Goths, who were now drawn up in front of their wagons; even