Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/75

The German Invasions 39 conducted across the river were in great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals conceived the idea of a most disgraceful traffic ; and having collected dogs from all quarters with the most insatiable rapacity, they exchanged them for an equal number of slaves, among whom were several sons of men of noble birth. . . . After narrating the events which led up to the battle of Adrianople, and vividly describing the battle itself, Ammianus thus records the death of the emperor Valens : So now, with rage flashing in their eyes, the barbarians Battle of pursued our men, who were in a state of torpor, the warmth Ad "anople of their veins having deserted them. Many were slain with- of valens. out knowing who smote them ; some were overwhelmed by the mere weight of the crowd which pressed upon them ; and some died of wounds inflicted by their own comrades. The barbarians spared neither those who yielded nor those who resisted. . . . Just when it first became dark, the emperor, being among a crowd of common soldiers as it was believed, for no one said either that he had seen him or been near him, was mortally wounded with an arrow, and, very shortly after, died, though his body was never found. For as some of the enemy loitered for a long time about the field in order to plunder the dead, none of the defeated army or of the inhabitants ventured to go to them. II. How THE WEST GOTHS BECAME ARIAN CHRISTIANS; HOW ALARIC TOOK ROME IN 410 The following account is by Jordanes, himself a Goth, 11. jordanes but unlike most of his people not an Arian, but an ortho- thTconver- dox Christian. He wrote about 551, nearly a century sionofthe Goths to and a half after the events which he here narrates : Arian Christian- The West Goths [terrified by the victories of the Huns ity. over the East Goths] requested Emperor Valens to grant