Battle of Marcianople

The Battle of Marcianople or Marcianopolis took place in 376 following the Goths' migration over the Danube. It was the first notable battle of the Gothic War of 376–382.[4]

Battle of Marcianople
Part of the Gothic War of 376–382
Date 376 Location Marcianople Result Gothic victory
Belligerents
Goths	Eastern Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Fritigern	Lupicinus
Strength
7,000–8,000[1]	5,000[2]
Casualties and losses
	Over half the army killed[3]

After a failed Roman attempt to assassinate the Gothic leadership at a banquet in Marcianople, the Roman commander Lupicinius gathered all available troops, some 5,000 men, and attacked the 7,000–8,000 Tervingi Goths under Fritigern nine miles to the west of the town. While the Romans adopted a defensive posture on the battlefield, the Goths launched an immediate, all-out assault and bashed and slew the Romans with their shields, swords, and spears. Lupicinius fled as more than half of his army was killed on the spot. The Goths then re-armed themselves with Roman weaponry.

Background

Introduction of the Goths into the Empire

In A.D. 376, after the death of Ermanaric's successor Vithimiris in battle against the Huns and the disintegration of the Ostrogothic kingdom, the west-Goths were forced to retreat before the feared Asian invaders. After the attempt to hold the Dniester against the enemy ended in failure and near encirclement and destruction, the Thervingi retreated; a part into Romania under Athanric, while the rest led by Fritigern fell back to the Danube, where they asked permission from the Roman Emperor Valens to be allowed to cross the river, which they thought could be held against the fearsome Asian barbarians.[5] Valens, then emperor in the east, yielded his consent, but on the terms that their wealth, arms, and a certain number of their high-born youth, should be surrendered to him as pledges of their loyalty; and that they were to become the faithful servants of the Empire, subject to the obligations as well as the benefits of residence within her boundaries; the desperate barbarians eagerly accepted his conditions, and close to a million Goths, including 200,000 effective warriors, according to Gibbon, were ferried across the Danube by the governors of Thrace.[6] Eunapius states their number as 200,000 including civilians, but Peter Heather estimates that the Thervings may have had only 10,000 warriors and 50,000 people in total, with the Greuthungi about the same size.[7]

Their disaffection

Trouble arose, however, when the corruption of Valens' local ministers came into play. Incapable of resisting the temptation presented by a multitude of desperate, suppliant, and increasingly famished victims, Valens' ministers shamelessly extorted from the Goths their property and even the persons of their wives and daughters, in return for the bare means of subsistence, which Valens had engaged to supply with a liberal hand. At the same time, they failed to disarm the Goths as intended, and their camp on the Danube was soon filled with the noise of war. Increasingly alarmed, Valens' generals resolved to disperse the Goths throughout the provinces, and gave orders for Fritigern, their leader, to march to Marcianopolis, where the respective places for each colony would be assigned. Fritigern, apparently still compliant, immediately hurried to obey the order.[8]

Battle

Having assembled the Goths near the city, Lupicinus, the Roman provincial commander in Thrace, who had himself played a conspicuous role in the exploitation and intolerable exactions to which the Goths had been subjected, invited their principal chiefs to a sumptuous feast, prepared in the hopes of conciliating them, and perhaps by bribery to discourage their revelation of his peculations to the emperor.[9]

In the midst of the entertainment, however, the main body of the Goths which had been ordered to encamp outside the city, in the attempt to obtain some provisions from the inhabitants, broke into a disorderly struggle with the Roman garrison, which denied them entrance. As soon as the noise of the fighting reached Fritigern in Lupicinus's palace, he broke out with the rest of the chiefs, swords drawn, and rejoined the Gothic camp outside the city. War was at once declared upon the Empire.

Lupicinus immediately assembled the entire forces at his disposal, resolved to march on the enemy and crush the revolt on its inception. The Goths met him about nine miles from Marcianopolis, and obtained a decisive victory. The veteran legions fought with marked bravery, but were deserted by their feckless leader, and ultimately succumbed to the numbers and ferocity of the enraged barbarians, who promptly fell to devastating the country, burning and desolating what they did not appropriate.[10]

Citations

1. MacDowall 2001, p. 42.
2. MacDowall 2001, p. 43.
3. MacDowall 2001, p. 44.
4. "Cascading Failure: The Roman Disaster at Adrianople AD 378 - Part 2 of 3" by Jeffrey R. Cox Military History Online accessed 13 August 2013
5. Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, (The Modern Library, 1932), chap.XXVI., pp. 921, 922
6. Gibbon, Ibid. pp. 923, 924
7. Heather, 2005, pp. 145, 507.
8. Gibbon, Ibid. pp. 925, 926
9. Gibbon, Ibid. P. 927
10. Gibbon, Ibid. p. 928

References

• MacDowall, S. (2001). Adrianople AD 378: The Goths Crush Rome's Legions. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1841761473.