hadrianople

Updated: May 20, 2025

The intention of the government was to scatter this multitude through the provinces as coloni, or to draft them into the legions; but the detachment detailed to handle them was too feeble, the Goths mutinied, cut the guard to pieces, and having ravaged Thrace for two years, defeated and killed Valens at Hadrianople.

Brooks Adams - The Emancipation of Massachusetts

Yet I may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may be confirmed by the observation of the condition and circumstances of the times.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2

Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into the father of his country, and of human kind.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2

The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls of Hadrianople.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2

The event of the battle of Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2

Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from the river to the city of Hadrianople.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1

Arianism was a thing of yesterday and had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished in the crash of Hadrianople. The Homoean supremacy had come to rest almost wholly on imperial misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure it some support elsewhere; but serious men were mostly Nicenes or Anomoeans.

Henry Melvill Gwatkin - The Arian Controversy

Two-thirds of the imperial army was destroyed, the emperor was slain, and the remainder fled in consternation. Sixty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry lay dead upon the fatal field. The victors, intoxicated with their success, invested Hadrianople, but were unequal to the task, being inexperienced in sieges. Laden with spoil, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace.

John Lord - Ancient States and Empires

The credulity of Zosimus prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1