The First Gothic Wars
Before the division of the Roman Empire, a previously unknown Germanic people invaded Eastern Europe and began to put pressure on the eastern borders of the Empire. Originating in southern Sweden, by 7 âñ-17 ad Roman records place the “Gutones” as they were known along the south shore of the Baltic Sea.
By about 150 they are reported to occupy a territory east of the Vistula River in today s Poland and soon after they began to migrate towards Ukraine. Old ballads of the East Goths, or Ostrogoths as they became known, describe the crossing of a vast swamp, no doubt the Pripet marsh while others headed south towards the Danube River to become known as the Visigoths. The Goths were probably acquainted with Eastern Europe to some extent, as the home of the “god” Odin, the Sarmatian who brought to them the secret of iron.28 The arrival of the Goths caused a major disturbance in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Their tradition of strong kingships allowed the formation of inter-tribal and multi-ethnic systems, with different tribes united in the person of the king. This made it possible to field larger forces, which were able to overcome smaller tribal units and on occasion Roman forces. In 238 a Gothic raid destroyed the Graeco-Roman city of Istropolis, and by 250 ad they had taken the great trading port of Olbia, and with the Sarmatian cavalry advanced into the Crimean Peninsula. The Gothic infantry and Sarmatian (Alan) cavalry formed a symbiotic alliance and it is during their stay on the Ukrainian steppe the Ostrogoths came under a strong Sarmatian influence, such as the birth of Gothic cavalry, hunting with steppe eagles and falcons, and the adoption of the Sarmatian defensive “carrago” wagon circle.29The Goths were not the only Germanic tribe to seek southern lands. By the 2nd Centurythe Vandals, Gepidae, Longobardi, Suevi, and Allemanihad already moved from the Baltic area and the shores of the North Sea into the Carpathian and central Danubian region.
In the same year as the fall of Olbia the Visigoths with their neighbors the Heruli, Borani, Uru- gundi, and Carpi began a series of raids across the Danube. In the spring of 250, three columns of Visigoths and their allies crossed the Danube and attacked the Roman provinces of Dacia and Moesia. Led by King Cniva they devastated the entire region, although Emperor Decius managed to expel the Carpi from part of the territory. The Goths were also besieging Philip- polis, and guaranteeing safe passage they tricked the defenders into surrendering. Once inside they proceeded to loot and pillage, taking booty and captives, including Romans of senatorial rank. By early summer laden with booty the Visigoths began to head north towards the Danube, but after several engagements they were met by the main Roman army at Attribus, in Bulgaria. Here the Roman legions suffered one of the greatest defeats at the hands of the Germanic barbarians. Lured by Cniva into a marshy terrain, the Romans were attacked from all sides and almost annihilated. Both Emperor Decius and his son were killed and only a small remnant of the army was led to safety by one Trebonianus Gallus who was elected Emperor on the spot by the grateful survivors.For the next several years the Roman Empire went into a decline, its strength sapped by the plague, which persisted for several years. In 253 the Goths and their allies struck again, with a series of invasive attacks this time into Greece and Asia Minor. Then, in 268, a large Heruli fleet emerged from the Sea of Azov, and merging with the Goths from the Dnister River broke through the Bosphorus and sailed into the Aegean Sea. Splitting into three groups the barbarians began to pillage coastal cities. Aforce OfHeruliwarriors launched an attack on Thessalonica, devastating the surrounding countryside. They were intercepted by Emperor Gallienus leading a strong force with heavy Cavalrywhich charged the Germanic infantry with devastating results. Some 3000 Heruli were left on the battlefield, dead or wounded.
Their leader Naulobates survived and accepted Roman service with the title of Consul. A second force of Goths had also landed on the Greek coast and began to pillage the Imperial cities of Athens, Corinth, Argos, Sparta, and Olympia. They were intercepted on their homeward route by the new emperor Claudius II at the city of Naissus, in todays Serbia, and both the Goth and Herula forces were defeated suffering heavy losses. The survivors attempted to evade the Romans by heading towards Macedonia but were surrounded near the Mons Gessax Mountain in Thrace. The Roman infantry was beaten back several times with heavy losses, but Roman cavalry decided the day. The Goths had little choice but to surrender, and most were either enrolled into the Roman army or were settled as farmers. The recurring plague had left its mark and manpower was in short supply.Claudius II himself died of the plague during the winter of270 and Aurelian, the commander of the palace cavalry, was chosen Emperor. He also proved to be an able commander. Defeating the Vandalas on the Hungarian plain, he marched into Italy, expelled the Iuthungi tribes and, again turning east, cleared the Roman provinces of Illiricum and Thrace. Pursuing the Goths across the Danube, Aurelian was met by the main Visigoth army led by King Cannabas. The Goths suffered another crushing defeat with the loss of some 5,000 warriors, including Cannabas, who was killed on the battlefield. The Visigoths were virtually destroyed, but Aurelian realized his superiority was of short duration. He ordered all Dacian territory to the north of the Danube be abandoned, which established the river as the new and more defensible Roman frontier. Aurelian proved to be an intelligent statesman as well, since the move bought the Roman Empire a century of peace. The Visigoths and their allies began to fight the Gepids and Carpi for the vacant land, with the Goths emerging as the victors and the dominant Germanic tribe.
The vacating of Dacia stabilized the border between the Visigoths and the Roman Empire along the Danube, and close contact between the two began to have an influence on the Germanic tribes.
Of lasting importance was the adoption of Christianity by the Visigoths following the creation of a Gothic alphabet by Bishop Ulfilas, and his translation of parts of the Bible completed by 341-348. The main objective for spreading Christianity amongst the Germanic tribes was to establish Roman Imperial influence as with its new capital at Constantinople the Empire had become officially Christian. The policy backfired and achieved the opposite result. Since Emperor Constantine s death in 337, the Arian “heresy” had replaced the Orthodox creed of Nicea in Constantinople, to which Ulfilas was exposed. The various interpretations of Christianity would become a source of wars between the Roman Empire and many of the Germanic tribes, as well as among Roman citizens themselves. Ironically, Ulfilas omitted the wars and conflicts in his translation of the Old Testament, so as not to encourage the Goths any further in their warlike tendencies. The Ostrogoths of the Crimea and the Sea of Azovhad already become acquainted with Christianityfrom Greekprisoners captured during the raids of 256-57, and we know that in 325 the Ostrogoth Bishop Theophilus attended the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea.30 The first Christian missionaries in the east came from Asia Minor and Jerusalem and followed Orthodox tenets, unlike the Visigoths, who came under the sway of Arianism, which did not accept Jesus Christ as the son of God, but merely the Messiah.Meanwhile Gothic power continued to grow in the east as the Ostrogoth King Hermanaric (Ermanaric) moved against the Sarmatians and the Slavic Antes, Sclavini, and the Vends, defeating them and establishing an empire which during 350- 370 stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. Our main source is Jordanes who is not always reliable and the extent of Herma- naric s conquests has been placed in doubt by many historians, although the existence of a multi-ethnic Gothic kingdom in Ukraine is fairly certain.31 It did not last long before a new invader arrived on the scene from the Far East.
A confederation of Mongol and Turkic tribes who we know as the Huns had been harassing the Chinese for centuries beginning from about 475 âñ, before they decided to move west sometime in the 2nd centuryAD. Whatever their origins it is fairly clear that the Huns had adopted much of the Scythian-Sarmatian military technology strategy and tactics, as well as many of their beliefs and customs, leading to the supposition that they were in fact a racially mixed people. As the Scythians, the Hun chiefs used gilded skulls of noted enemies for drinking cups during feasts and important occasions. Chinese records mention the practice during a treaty ceremony between the Huns (the “Xiongnu”) and representatives of the Han Dynasty:Chan, Myn, the shan-yu (chief of a tribal union) and the elders went up the mountain of the Xiongnu by the east side of the river No-Shui, and impaled a white horse. The shan-yu took a costly sword and moistened the tip with wine; they drank the dedicated wine from the skull of a Yue-Chi lord who had been killed by the shan-yu Laoshan.32
The Huns overran the SarmatianAlans about 370 and five years later they struck Hermanaric s kingdom. Suffering a major defeat Hermanaric supposedly committed suicide, or perhaps was killed by his own men who replaced him by the SlavVithi- mir(es). Even though he was reinforced by a Hun (Sarmatian?) tribe, which had broken away from the main horde (“urda”) Vithimir was also defeated and killed in battle. The shattered Ostrogoth forces retreated west to join the Visigoths on the Danube under their KingAthanaric, but failing to stop the Huns they sought refuge in Roman territory. Other Ostrogoths retreated to the Crimea, establishing settlements that were reported to exist as late as the 18th century. The main account of what occurred on the Danube is due to Ammianus, “Res Gestae,” of which only a part covering the period 353-378 has survived. By the spring of 376 the disorganized Visigoths were on the northern shore of the Danube, requesting EmperorValens permission to cross, which was granted in exchange for military service which was desperately needed for the war against Persia.
An eyewitness estimated that some 200,000 men, women, and children were ferried across the Danube over several days. Months later, however, when the Ostrogoths arrived with a similar request it was denied by Emperor Valens who did not seem to be comfortable with the growing number of barbarians gathering on Roman territory.What happened next is not clear. The Duce of Thrace Lu- cipinus apparently decided to relocate the Visigoths away from the Danube and more inland, to put some distance between them and the Ostrogoths who were camped on the north shore. Arriving at a city called Marianople in Bulgaria they began to be harassed in their encampment by Romanian troops and slave traders, and many were refused entry into the city to buy supplies. Ammianus described the desperate and impossible situation in which the Visigoths found themselves:
...but one melancholy and unheard-of act shall be mentioned, of which even if they were their own judges of their own case, they could not be acquitted by an excuse. When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic: they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among those were carried off also sons of the chieftains.33
Facing possible starvation or a suspected Romanian attack, the Visigoths broke into open revolt and began to vacate their location. Pursued by the enemy and led by their leader Fritigen the Goths met them a short distance from the city of Mar- cianople and inflicted a bloody defeat on the Romanian legions. Only Lucipinus and a handful of men survived and found refuge inside the city.
Following their victory the Visigoths equipped themselves with Romanian weaponry and supplies and began to rampage throughout Thrace, joined by several cohorts of dissatisfied Goth mercenaries, as well as slaves and other oppressed elements of the Province. Fresh Romanian troops were dispatched to Thrace by Emperor Valens who had returned to Constantinople from the Middle East where he was fighting the Persians, but by this time the revolt had spread to neighboring Moesia. Reinforced by Western troops sent by his nephew Gratian, an Imperial force led by generals Profuturus and Traianus met the Visigoths at a site called Ad Salices where again the Imperial army suffered a great defeat. Profuturus was killed, and it was only thanks to the training and discipline of the Imperial army that a surviving force managed to withdraw from the battlefield and seek refuge behind the walls of Marcianople. The Western Roman general Frigenidus succeeded in defeating a Visigoth force led by Farnabius but the main Gothic forces under Fritigen continued to ravage Moesia and Scythia.
Now Valens himself took charge, shuffling commanders and reorganizing the officer corps. In the meantime Fritigen consolidated his raiding parties into a single force, and began to advance OnAdrianople (Hadrianople). Advisedbyhis spies and scouts that the city had a substantial garrison and was well defended, Fritigen decided to camp at a nearby site called Nike. Valens was also advancing on Adrianople, encamping in the suburbs of the citywith his main force of some 20,000 men. Informed by his scouts that the enemy force consists of only 10,000 to 15,000 men, Valens decided to give battle and not wait for the arrival of Gratian s western army. On the morning of the 9th OfAugustValens left the outskirts of Adrianople and proceeded northeast to meet the Goths, encamped on a rolling plain. After a short march, just before noon, the Romanians came against the Goths who were now formed up in a line along the top of a ridge. As the Romanians began to deploy in battle formation, with infantry units arrayed in the center and cavalry protecting their flanks, Fritigen sent envoys requesting peace negotiations. He was stalling for time, waiting for the arrival of the Ostrogoths who in the meantime had crossed the Danube and were heading south. Fritigen had also noticed that the Romanians were drawn up in full battle gear in the heat of the midday sun and would soon begin to wane.
Valens took the bait and began to open talks with the enemy and what occurred next is recounted by one Ammuni- anus, who was probably an eyewitness. Whether following orders or on their own initiative due to the heat, two units of the elite house (palace) guards stationed on the right flank, began to advance and engage the enemy. With the remaining Imperial units holding their position, the right flank became exposed and then destabilized when the Goths attacked.
About the same time as the fighting began on the Romanian right flank the Saracen cavalry, which was stationed on the left wing charged, sending the Sarmatian-Gothic cavalry into a retreat. Pursuing the fleeing enemy the Saracen cavalry was cut off from the main Romanian infantry ranks, and when counter-attacked by the Sarmatian heavy lancers the much- vaunted Saracens were annihilated. The retreat and subsequent Counterattackwas of course a standard Sarmatian ambush tactic, which must have been unknown to the Imperial mercenary Saracens. Neither side had won a clear advantage, and the battle continued to rage when the awaited Ostrogoths and their Alan cavalry arrived to turn the tide. Without the protection of the cavalry the Imperial infantry was outflanked and compressed in on itself, a situation where superior numbers were of little use. Towards the late afternoon the impenetrable Romanian ranks began to break, and the rout began. Deprived of their reserves, which had beaten a hasty retreat, some Romanian units fought their way out of the encirclement but most of the army was destroyed. It is said that towards the evening Valens himself was struck by an arrow, probably the victim of a Sarmatian mounted archer, and was carried to a nearby farmhouse badly wounded. It was soon surrounded by the Goths who, without bothering to storm the building, set it ablaze, burning alive the emperor, his loyal bodyguards and eunuch attendants. When the battle was over the Goths learned from captured prisoners how close they had come to capturing the Emperor.
The victory of the Goths and Sarmatians at Adrianople was total and it seemed as if the Eastern Roman Empire was doomed. The advancing barbarian forces, however, were unable to take eitherAdrianople or Constantinople, both cities being defended by heavy walls and fortifications. Seeking vengeance, a systematic slaughter of Goths serving in the Eastern Romanian armies and hostages who had been taken in 376 now began. Under the orders of the supreme commander of the East, all Gothic units serving in the Imperial forces in Asia Minor and Syria were surrounded and wiped out.34 Four months after the battle the Western Emperor Gratian proclaimed Theodosius as co-Augustus who proceeded to confront the barbarians with fresh forces. The Goths and their allies were also receiving reinforcement from barbarian units in the Imperial army who began to desert in large numbers. Thus replenished both antagonists renewed the conflict and several battles followed with victories and defeats on both sides. In 380 the Goths overcame a Roman army, proceeded to OccupyMacedonia and Thessaly in northern Greece and began to advance westward but were halted the following year by Gratians generals, Arbogast and Bauto. No attempt, however, was made to send the Eastern Emperor Theodosius reinforcements, and realizing that he had little choice, Theodosius opened negotiations with the Goths. Peace finally came with a treaty signed on the 3rd October 382, by which the Goths retained the lands they had conquered in return for military service.
Whythe Goths and their allies did not press their advantage and occupy the Eastern Roman Empire remains a mystery. Perhaps they lacked sufficient strength, and perhaps they had little intention ofwitnessing the destruction of the Empire, having gained their main objective—the right to settle on Imperial lands and to practice Arian Christianity. The Eastern Empire was saved and would survive for the next millennium, long after the fall of Rome itself. The Gothic ChiefFritigen, who together with his chieftains Alotheus, Saphrax and Videric had so ably defeated the Roman war machine, was never heard of again.