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Updated: May 3, 2025
I will betray your cowardice and treachery to your brethren in the camp! And she ran to the outside of the tent, calling in a loud voice to a group of young warriors who happened to be passing at a short distance. 'Stay, stay! Fritigern Athanaric Colias Suerid Witheric Fravitta! Hasten hitherward! Hermanric has a captive in his tent a prisoner whom it will rejoice to see! Hitherward! hitherward!
But when the Huns came up suddenly from the steppes of Asia, the stately Gothic warriors fled almost without a blow from the hordes of wild dwarfish horsemen. The Ostrogoths became the servants of their conquerors, and the heathens of Athanaric found a refuge in the recesses of the Transylvanian forests. But Fritigern was a Christian. Rome had helped him once before, and Rome might help him now.
It soon appeared that the Goths could do nothing with their victory, and sooner or later would have to make their peace with Rome. Theodosius drove them inland in the first campaign; and while he lay sick at Thessalonica in the second, Gratian or his generals received the submission of the Ostrogoths. Fritigern died the same year, and his old rival Athanaric was a fugitive before it ended.
Hermanric intrusted the defense of his country to Athanaric, who was defeated in a bloody battle, and a hollow peace was made with Victor and Arintheus, the generals of Valens. The Goths retained their arms and their greed, and pretended to settle peaceably in the province of Mosia.
Athanaric, who, on this occasion, appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the ministers of Valens.
For the Huns being very sagacious in conjectures suspecting that there must be a considerable multitude farther off, contrived to pass beyond those they had seen, and arranged themselves to take their rest where there was nothing at hand to disturb them; and then, when the moon dispelled the darkness of night, they forded the river, which was the best plan which presented itself, and fearing lest the pickets at the outposts might give the alarm to the distant camp, they made all possible speed and advanced with the hope of surprising Athanaric himself.
Athanaric himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania. * Part III.
The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric.
The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the Roman empire.
But when, as seemed best for the interests of the State, these ambassadors had been rejected, and were in great anxiety what they should do, Athanaric, fearing similar treatment, departed, recollecting that long ago, when he was discussing a treaty with Valens, he had treated that Emperor with contempt in affirming that he was bound by a religious obligation never to set his foot on the Roman territory; and that, by this excuse, he had compelled the Emperor to conclude a peace in the middle of the war.
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