[Illustration:  The body of Valens, found upon the field of battle.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 376.]

The nation of the Goths had been from remote ages settled on the banks of the Danube, and were by that river divided into two nations, the Ostrogoths on the east, and the Visigoths on the west.  They had for many years enjoyed the blessings of profound peace under the government of their king Herman’ric, when they were suddenly alarmed by the appearance of vast hordes of unknown enemies on their northern and eastern frontiers.  These were the Huns, a branch of the great Mongolian race, which, from the earliest time, had possessed the vast and wild plains of Tartary.  Terrified by the numbers, the strength, the strange features and implacable cruelty of such foes, the Goths deserted their country, almost without attempting opposition, and supplicated the emperor Va’lens to grant them a settlement in the waste lands of Thrace.  This request was cheerfully granted, and the eastern empire was supposed to be strengthened by the accession of a million of valiant subjects, bound both by interest and gratitude to protect its frontiers.

18.  But the avarice of Va’lens and his ministers defeated these expectations; instead of relieving their new subjects, the Roman governors took advantage of their distress to plunder the remains of their shattered fortunes, and to reduce their children to slavery.  Maddened by such oppression, the Goths rose in arms, and spread desolation over the fertile plains of Thrace.  Va’lens summoned his nephew, Gratian, to his assistance; but before the emperor of the west arrived, he imprudently engaged the Goths near Adrianople, and with the greater part of his army fell on the field. 19.  This was the most disastrous defeat which the Romans had sustained for several centuries; and there was reason to dread that it would encourage a revolt of the Gothic slaves in the eastern provinces, which must terminate in the ruin of the empire.  To prevent such a catastrophe, the senate of Constantinople ordered a general massacre of these helpless mortals, and their atrocious edict was put into immediate execution. 20.  The Goths attempted to besiege both Adrianople and Constantinople, but, ignorant of the art of attacking fortified places, they were easily repelled; but they however succeeded in forcing their way through the Thracian mountains, and spread themselves over the provinces to the west, as far as the Adriatic sea and the confines of Italy.  The march of the emperor Gratian had been delayed by the hostility of the Alleman’ni, whom he subdued in two bloody engagements; but as he advanced towards Adrianople, fame brought the news of his uncle’s defeat and death, which he found himself unable to revenge.

21.  Feeling that the affairs of the East required the direction of a mind more energetic than his own, he determined to invest with the imperial purple, Theodo’sius, the son of that general who had rescued Britain from the barbarians.  How great must have been his confidence in the fidelity of his new associate, who had a father’s death to revenge; for the elder Theodo’sius, notwithstanding his splendid services, had fallen a victim to the jealous suspicions of the emperor!