Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)Wars and battles

Battle of Adrianople

The Goths led by Fritigern destroyed the army of the eastern emperor Valens, who was killed; the defeat showed that Rome could no longer drive out a barbarian people settled on its soil.

Date: 9 August 378exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
Place: near Adrianopleapproximate locationtoday: near Edirne, Turkey · Balkans and Anatolia
Participants: Roman Empire, Valens, Goths, Fritigern
Threads: Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as: Battle of Hadrianopolis; Битва при Адрианополе

Valens attacked the Gothic wagon camp near Adrianople without waiting for the western army of his nephew Gratian. While his tired troops were still deploying, the Gothic cavalry of Alatheus and Saphrax returned from foraging and struck their flank; the Roman infantry was surrounded and cut down. About two-thirds of the army perished — modern estimates range from 10,000 to 20,000 men — along with Valens himself, whose body was never found.

Ammianus Marcellinus compared the disaster to Cannae. The empire survived, and the Goths could not take the fortified cities, but Adrianople is often seen as the beginning of the end of Roman power in the West.

Open in the interactive atlas