Battles & Wars › Greece, Rome & Han › Roman Empire
Battle of Adrianople
August 9, 378· Battle· Europe
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Gothic warriors destroyed an East Roman army and killed Emperor Valens near today's Edirne in Turkey.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
In 376 Gothic refugees fleeing the Huns were allowed across the Danube into the empire. Abused and starved by Roman officials, they rebelled. Emperor Valens attacked their wagon camp near Adrianople on a hot August afternoon in 378 without waiting for western reinforcements under his nephew Gratian. Gothic cavalry returning from foraging hit his flank, and the Roman infantry was surrounded. About two-thirds of the army, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 men, died, along with Valens.
Why it matters
Rome could no longer expel the Goths, who settled inside the empire as a semi-independent people. Their descendants sacked Rome in 410.
How we know
Ammianus Marcellinus, a retired Roman officer writing soon afterward, gives a detailed account. Numbers on both sides are modern estimates.
Still debated
Army sizes are uncertain, and historians debate how decisive the battle was compared with Rome's later political mistakes.
Connections (3)
▸Battle of Adrianople helped start the crisis that toppled the western Roman EmpireMostly agreed
The connection
Adrianople destroyed much of the eastern field army and showed that a Germanic people could beat Rome inside its own borders. A treaty in 382 let the Goths settle as semi-independent allies. Their descendants, the Visigoths, sacked Rome in 410, and other settled groups carved up the West until 476.
When and how
Near Adrianople (Edirne, Turkey), August 9, 378; peace with the Goths in 382 under Emperor Theodosius I.
How sure are we?
Ammianus Marcellinus called it Rome's worst defeat since Cannae; later sources trace the Visigoths' path from this settlement to Rome and Gaul.
Debates and open questions
Some historians see Adrianople as the start of the West's fall; others stress later civil wars and politics, noting that the East survived the same shock.
▸Battle of Adrianople was once said to foreshadow Stirrup and heavy cavalry (knights)Debated
The connection
Nineteenth-century historians, notably Charles Oman, read Adrianople as Gothic cavalry crushing Roman infantry, the start of a thousand years of horsemen ruling the battlefield. Modern scholars disagree: Gothic horsemen mattered, but the Goths fought largely on foot, the Romans had cavalry too, and stirrups were still unknown in Europe.
When and how
The battle in 378; the 'age of cavalry' theory in Charles Oman's histories of medieval warfare, from 1885 onward.
How sure are we?
Ammianus mentions the returning Gothic cavalry but describes a mostly infantry fight, which undercuts the old theory.
Debates and open questions
How large and decisive the Gothic cavalry's role was remains debated, since Ammianus's description is vivid but vague.
▸Hunnic Empire (Attila the Hun) drove the Goths into Roman land before Battle of AdrianopleWell documented
The connection
Around 370 the Huns attacked the Gothic peoples north of the Black Sea. Fleeing groups, mainly the Tervingi under Fritigern, asked for entry and crossed the Danube in 376. Their mistreatment by Roman officials led to revolt and, two years later, to Adrianople, where other Goths who had fled the Huns fought alongside them.
When and how
Today's Ukraine and the lower Danube, about 370–376; Gothic leaders Fritigern and Alavivus; Emperor Valens admitted them.
How we know
Ammianus Marcellinus links the Huns' arrival directly to the Gothic crossing; archaeology shows the Goths' Chernyakhov culture fading around this time.
Debates and open questions
Why the Huns moved west, and whether they alone set the migrations off, is unclear.