Battle of Adrianople

Dawn, 9 August 378

Valens marched out of Adrianople at dawn on 9 August 378 toward Fritigern's wagon-ring, leaving the imperial treasury, the insignia and most of the baggage inside the city's defenses.

His men crossed eight Roman miles of rough ground in intense heat and reached the Gothic position during the afternoon, hungry and thirsty.

He had chosen to fight before Gratian's reinforcements arrived, on intelligence that understated the dispersed Gothic forces.

The parley that broke

Fritigern drew the negotiations out while the cavalry commanded by Alatheus and Saphrax came back. The western officer Richomeres had volunteered to go across as a high-status hostage.

Roman archers and targeteers attacked before that mission could set out, ending the parley with neither army fully prepared. The returning Gothic and Alan horse struck; the Roman cavalry was routed and the infantry compressed into a formation too crowded to fight effectively.

An emperor nobody could find

The army collapsed by nightfall. Ammianus says barely one Roman in three got away and counts thirty-five dead tribunes and unit commanders. The generals Trajanus and Sebastianus also fell.

Valens died in the rout and his body was never recovered. Ammianus preserves two incompatible accounts of how — a fatal arrow among the infantry, or burning inside a farmhouse.

The following day the victors attacked Adrianople itself to seize the treasury and the insignia, and the defenders repelled them.