Valens

Valens ruled the eastern Roman Empire for fourteen years and was killed at Adrianople in the worst Roman defeat in eight centuries. Born around 328 in Pannonia, he was the younger brother of Valentinian I and had no distinguished career of his own. When the army elected Valentinian in 364 and required him to name a colleague immediately, he chose his brother and gave him the east, which is the whole of Valens's qualification. He was an Arian in a largely Nicene east and persecuted accordingly, exiling bishops and harassing monastic communities, which is why the ecclesiastical historians who wrote about him hated him. He was also a competent administrator who cut taxes, prosecuted corrupt officials, and built the aqueduct in Constantinople that still carries his name. The Gothic crisis destroyed him. Hunnic pressure drove the Tervingi to the Danube in 376 asking for asylum, and Valens admitted perhaps 200,000 — a defensible decision, since they were potential taxpayers and recruits, and one made impossible by the officials who then starved and extorted them, selling dog meat for their children. They revolted, and he came west from the Persian frontier to deal with it. At Adrianople on 9 August 378 he attacked without waiting for his nephew Gratian's approaching army, partly out of jealousy of Gratian's recent victory, and while negotiations were still open. Gothic cavalry returned from foraging and enveloped him. Two-thirds of the eastern field army died with him, and his body was never found. Theodosius settled the Goths inside the empire as federates four years later, on terms no Roman government had ever conceded.

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