Valens

Valens was the eastern Roman emperor whose catastrophic defeat and death at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 stands as one of the most consequential military disasters in Roman history. Appointed as eastern co-emperor by his brother Valentinian I in 364, Valens lacked his brother's natural military gifts. In 376 Valens made the fateful decision to allow the Visigoths to cross the Danube and settle in Thrace as Roman subjects. The settlement immediately went disastrously wrong as Roman officials exploited and humiliated the Gothic settlers. The Goths rose in rebellion in 377. Valens engaged the Visigoths outside Adrianople on August 9, 378. The Roman cavalry fled and the Gothic cavalry encircled and destroyed the Roman infantry. Valens was killed in the battle and perhaps two-thirds of the eastern field army perished with him.

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