Fritigern

Fritigern led the Gothic army that destroyed a Roman field army at Adrianople in 378, one of the worst defeats in Roman history. He was a leader of the Thervingi, a Gothic group living north of the Danube, and had been a rival of the pagan chieftain Athanaric; Fritigern accepted Arian Christianity, probably to secure Roman support. In 376 the Huns broke the Gothic confederations in the Ukrainian steppe, and enormous numbers of Thervingi arrived on the north bank of the Danube asking to be admitted to the empire. The emperor Valens agreed, seeing a source of recruits and taxpayers, on condition they surrender their weapons. The reception was catastrophically mismanaged. The Roman officers Lupicinus and Maximus took bribes to let the Goths keep their arms, then withheld the promised food and sold dogs to starving families at the price of a child per animal, taking Gothic children into slavery. In 377 Lupicinus attempted to murder Fritigern and the other leaders at a banquet at Marcianople; Fritigern talked his way out and the revolt began. He avoided pitched battle for two years, ravaged Thrace, and understood that his people could not take walled cities — he is quoted as saying he kept peace with walls. In August 378 Valens, without waiting for the western army under Gratian that was days away, attacked the Gothic wagon laager near Adrianople. The Gothic cavalry returned during the battle and struck the Roman flank. Two thirds of the eastern field army was destroyed and Valens was killed, his body never found. Fritigern could not exploit it, and disappears from the record shortly afterwards.

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