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Updated: May 20, 2025
After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Cæsar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.
The aged and slothful Eastern emperor roused himself to a grand effort and marshalled an army of one hundred and fifty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse on the plains of Hadrianople, while his fleet of three hundred and fifty triremes commanded the Hellespont.
Calling forth that spirit and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the Straits of the Hellespont with his fleet.
Gregory of Nyssa may represent one class, Helladius of Cæsarea the other. The omissions, however, are significant. We miss not only Antioch and Jerusalem, but Ephesus and Hadrianople, and even Nicomedia. There is a broad space left clear around the Bosphorus.
Heraclea and Hadrianople might, perhaps, escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words, the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the Eastern Empire.
The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls of Hadrianople, was fortified, according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and rampart; and a most important council was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the empire.
He was soon persuaded, by the successful achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power of the Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now collected in the neighborhood of Hadrianople.
The tide of the Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and land.
But the effects which were produced by the battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the latter, far beyond the limits of a single day.
The aged Hermanneric, exasperated by misfortune, made preparations for a general war, while Sarmatians, Alans, and Huns united with them. After three indecisive campaigns, the emperor Valens advanced to attack their camp near Hadrianople, defended by Fritagern. Under the walls of this city was fought the most bloody and disastrous battle which Rome ever lost, A.D. 378.
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