oppressors. The Roman officer on the spot, Lupicinus, who, to quote Gibbon's words, "had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who had presumed to despise them," could not withstand their might, and his legions were broken and put to flight by their resolute onslaught. "That day," says the Gothic historian Jornandes, "put an end to the distress of the barbarians and the security of the Romans." The regions south of the Danube, all Moesia and Thrace, were now open to the Goths, and were not spared by them. These fruitful provinces were cruelly ravaged, and though they could not capture the cities, yet soon, to the terror and dismay of the Romans, the Gothic host, to the number of 200,000 men, were under the walls of Adrianople.
Valens at this perilous crisis was at Antioch. Persia was still under the formidable Sapor, and it was necessary to watch his movements and to guard the frontier. Valens, who does not seem generally to have been a man of any conspicuous energy and ability, was prompt on this occasion, and withdrew the legions from Armenia for the defence of his capital and its neighbourhood. He asked aid from his nephew, Gratian, now the emperor of the West. Gratian, who was but nineteen years of age, had just won a decisive victory in Alsace over the Alemanni, a powerful confederation of German tribes, and he was quite prepared and willing to throw the whole weight of his power into the approaching conflict with the Goths. Valens ought to have waited for his arrival, and then he might have confidently reckoned on success. As it was, as soon as he reached Constanti-
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