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

Gothic invasions of the Balkans and Asia Minor

For more than thirty years Goths, Heruli, Carpi and other peoples from beyond the lower Danube and the northern shores of the Black Sea raided the Roman Balkans and Asia Minor by land and sea: they killed the emperor Decius at Abritus and sacked Athens, until the victories of Claudius II at Naissus and of Aurelian in 271 turned the tide.

Date
238–271year known · duration: ≈ 33 years
Place
Marcianopolisapproximate locationtoday: Devnya, Varna Province, Bulgaria · Balkans and Anatolia
Participants
Goths, Heruli, Roman Empire, Decius, Cniva, Gallienus, Claudius II Gothicus, Aurelian
Threads
Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as
Scythian wars; Gothic wars of the 3rd century; Gothic raids; Скифские войны; Готские войны III века; Готские набеги

Greek writers, following the Athenian historian Dexippus, called the invaders “Scythians” — hence the name “Scythian wars” used in Russian scholarship. The raids began on the lower Danube: in 238 the Carpi and Goths razed Histria on the Black Sea coast. Roman subsidies bought only short respites, and after Philip the Arab stopped paying them in 248 the Goths, led first by Ostrogotha and then by Cniva, besieged Marcianopolis, took Philippopolis and in 251 destroyed the army of Decius at Abritus. From the mid-250s the war moved to the sea: the Borani and Goths sailed along the coasts of the Black Sea and took Pityus and Trapezus, and in the late 250s the cities of Bithynia — Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Prusa — were sacked. In 262 or 268, according to later writers, the Goths burned the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

The greatest expeditions came in 267–269. The Heruli broke through into the Aegean and sacked Athens, Corinth, Argos and Sparta; then a still larger coalition of Goths, Heruli and their allies invaded the Balkans by land and sea, until Claudius II destroyed its main force at Naissus. In 271 Aurelian crossed the Danube and killed the Gothic leader Cannabaudes, and soon afterwards Rome gave up Dacia. The wars left the Balkan provinces and the coasts of Asia Minor devastated, but they also drew the Goths into the Roman world: prisoners were settled on the land or enrolled in the army.

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Connections

Consequences

  • Aurelian abandons Daciabetween 271 and 275 · Balkans and Anatoliapressure from the Goths, the Carpi and other peoples made Dacia hard to hold

Includes

Part of

Related events

  • Costoboci sack Eleusisbetween 170 and 171 · Balkans and Anatoliaa century earlier the Costoboci had broken through the lower Danube as far as Attica
  • The Goths destroy Tanaisbetween 244 and 254 · Eastern Europethe Goths’ advance on the Black Sea coast
  • Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382 · Balkans and Anatoliathe next great war between Rome and the Goths, a century later

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The same period

3rd century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Gothic War (248–253)
  2. Wikipedia (English): Crisis of the Third Century
  3. Wikipedia (English): Histria (ancient city)
  4. Wikipedia (English): Temple of Artemis
  5. Wikipedia (Russian): Скифские войны
  6. Wikipedia (Russian): Кризис Римской империи III века
  7. Ременников А. М. Борьба племён Северного Причерноморья с Римом в III веке. — М.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1954.
  8. Kulikowski M. Rome’s Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric. — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.