Happy Adrianople Day

[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]

[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