Happy Adrianople Day

[Shylence]

In the spirit of Cannae, Happy Big fat roman slaughter day Gothic style

[pseudocaesar]

ahh its all well and good to abuse the romans but lets not forget that from the time augustus settled the civil war they only had like two big defeats worth caring about for a loong time (the two german disasters late in Augustus reign), like a couple of centuries at least? the legions in the early principate were the best soldiers in the world for a long time, until i would say Adrianople, some 378 years.

[Moros]

LoL

Happy Adrainople Day everybody!

[keravnos]

And a great Adrianople Day to you too!

(For many reasons!)

[Tellos Athenaios]

[gran_guitarra]

Didn't the Romans lose that because they were outnumbered? I remember the History Channel documentary about it that said quite clearly that the reason Rome lost that battle was more lack of numbers than anything.
If the battle had been even (It said the Romans were slightly outnumbered 17500 to 15000) the story would probably have been very diferent.

[Tiberius of the Drake]

Valens was an incompetent emperor as well as an incompetent general. He was to greedy for glory to wait for reinforcements. But Fritigern was also a very good General.

anyways...

Happy Adrianople day:D:D:D:D:D::D:D

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The Roman scouts failed to see the Gothic cavalry which had been moved to a more distant valley for grazing. Eager for glory and thinking he had superior numbers, Valens rushed into battle.

[Reno Melitensis]

The Battle at Adrianople was between the Visighots, who where employed at auxillia by the Romans, and Emperor Valens eastern army, made of Comitatensis, Palatina, and Auxilliary units. The Gothic Wars where not an invasion by a migrating tribe, the Visigoths had been living in Roman land for a long time by then, but a civil war. Alaric, the one that plundered Rome, was a Magister Militum, a Roman officer.

The defeat at Adrianople was not because the late Roman army was inferior to the Visighots, but due to great mistakes and scouting from Valens. The Romans had a few cavalry units at the battle, and where easily routed by the better Gothic cavalry, which then outflanked the Roman army. That why it was a Disaster.

A few years later Alaric was given a crashing defeat by the then Magister Militum of the west Stilicho in Greece, but he continued to fight, plundering Rome itself in 410 AD.

May Jupiter Maximus forgive your hate to the sons of Mars.

Cheers.

[Baryonyx Walkeri]

Fritigern was a great general, but the same cant be said of valens.

Here is a resumé of the battle:

Adrianople, the romans initially had a good grip against the Goths (surprise attacks, ambushes and other tactics of guerrilla warfare) but it was also clear that the goths were much more tougher than the other "traditional" german opponents and much more organiced. The romans fought them using their strategy of containment and attritionwar, who worked initially quite well, but that alone could not lead to the victory. A decisive battle was needed and here we come to Adrianople.

Emperor Valent management of the battle was disastrous, he underestimated grossly the Goths numerically (also due to bad inteligence work) since he outnumbered them he dreamed of a fast victorious and easy battle.
He pushed hes troops to hard, with incredibly long marches (under the hot sun) without pauses and almust no food and water.
This contrast with the traditional roman way of fighting always with fresh troops, so when the soldiers arrived at the decised point they were exsausted.
The organisation of the roman formation was exagerately disorganiced, there were almust no reserve collum ( traditional roman strategy ) and there were to much space between the wings.

When the gothic cavalry charged the left wing, the roman formation was not entirely deployed, so the roman cavalry just as the infantry was cought at surprise and without sufficent reserves to support them they were easely defeated.

The romans in other words were cought with their pants down, all the best soldier valent had did their best, but they were all sl*ghtered. The lanciarii and the mattiaci fought to the last, but they couldn change the situation.
The romans apparently lost the battle because they didnt employ the common roman way of formation and manovre. They were disorganiced, confused, exsausted, slow and undisciplined, many units charged the goths (especially the promontori and the sagittari)at their own initiative (and they were easely defeated)...breaking their formation and leaving the entire area vulnerable to Goth initiative.

Ammianus describe the battle wery well, the roman was charged from all sides and sourronded could not manovre, they kept stand uintil it was humanely possible. Many dyed from both sides, included emperator Valent, hit by a arrow (say some) or burned alive in a house were he was trying to hide (say others).

Adrianople was a masterpiece of incompetence and disorganitation. if the romans were fighting in their traditional way of order and discipline, the disaster would probably not be roman but goth (or both).

When do we have a ZAMA or ALESIA day? ;)

[Thaatu]

[Anastasios Helios]

I mourn because so many brave Romanoi died to no purpose...

I celebrate because an incompetent Valens was crushed.

[NeoSpartan]

Hey fellas keep these "Happy Butt-Kicking Day" comming along. This is fun/educative to read.

[Orb]

I hate Romans. Stupid big noses and straight roads.

Edit: Disclaimer: Any Romans reading this can treat the former sentence as the ravings of a madman.

[Starforge]

When do we have a ZAMA or ALESIA day? ;)

October 19th and October 2nd respectively (or so I found from a cursory web search...let the experts weigh in if they note an error.)

Soon

[Olaf The Great]

Also it was not the "Visigoths" or the "Ostrogoths" they were just "goths"

Damn punks with their clothing.

[Reno Melitensis]

I hate Romans. Stupid big noses and straight roads.

Edit: Disclaimer: Any Romans reading this can treat the former sentence as the ravings of a madman.

Orb remember that your ancestors where civilized by the Romans.

Cheers.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You should've added a disclaimer there yourself....

[Andronikos]

Happy Marathon day!
All Helenes should celebrate. Today we remember a great victory, the battle where Greeks fought for their freedom, such a great victory that we celebrate twice a year (12th august and 12th september).

[Tellos Athenaios]

Time for a separate thread, I s'ppose.

[Orb]

Orb remember that your ancestors where civilized by the Romans.

Cheers.

I only need to look at myself to tell that my ancestors were never civilised

[christof139]

The oldest known stone building in the world seems to be a circular home in Ireland, and the oldest known mummies in the world are from South America, so Cro-magnon and then the Egyptians simultaneously came from Ireland and South America. Yup. Very simple. Uh-huh.

Happy Marathon day!!! And I hope you didn't have to walk or run that distance this day. Makes my feet, legs, broken knee etc., and my whole body ache just to think about that at this day and my age with all the accumulated 'honors' derived throughout my short life. Swimming at least is theraputic, so I think of Happy Salamis Day!!!

Chris

[Olaf The Great]

MY ancestors had near no contact with the Romans and we're more civilized
than any old Brit :P.

Course..we did..kinda..raid..Northern Europe a few hundred times..and our Relatives the Germans DID destroy the Roman Empire.


Hmm..Huh..Hruh

[Starforge]

The oldest known stone building in the world seems to be a circular home in Ireland, and the oldest known mummies in the world are from South America, so Cro-magnon and then the Egyptians simultaneously came from Ireland and South America. Yup. Very simple. Uh-huh.

And here I thought those pyramids in Bosnia were the oldest known stone buildings!!!!

[Baryonyx Walkeri]

MY ancestors had near no contact with the Romans and we're more civilized
than any old Brit :P.

Course..we did..kinda..raid..Northern Europe a few hundred times..and our Relatives the Germans DID destroy the Roman Empire.


Hmm..Huh..Hruh

naah you had contact with Rome, lot of them, and Rome was overtrown by a conspiracy, not by a barbarian raid

[christof139]

Yeah, these:

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanagic/

Chris

PS: The small, circular, stone Irish building and the South America mummies are legit though, about 10,000 years old, give or take. What is very interesting are the recent tunnels/old streets/whatever found below the surface of existing ancient Egyptian buildings around the Great Pyramid. Who knows what mysteries will be discovered and/or solved to some degree there and elsewhere.

[Maxinius Scipio]

Valens was an idiot, he lost the Eastern Empire's best troops and probably left Greece wide open for invasion. I remember someone saying that any of us could've beaten the Goths, and that's probably true.

Btw, I'm 1/4 Roman. Woohoo!