THE SCENE: For hundreds of years, the Gothic people had been a manageable subordinate nation that added its military might to the Roman legions. However, when hostile neighbors and famine brought the Goths to a historic low ebb of power, a Roman general attempt a treacherous coup against Gothic leadership. The subsequent Gothic backlash is one of the crucial turning points in the history of the Roman Empire.
THE TEXT: Soon famine and want came upon [the Goths], as often happens to a people not yet well settled in a country. Now it came to pass in that troublesome time that Lupicinus, the Roman general, invited Fritigern, a chieftain of the Goths, to a feast and, as the event revealed, devised a plot against him. Fritigern, thinking no evil, came to the feast with a few followers. While he was dining in the praetorium he heard the dying cries of his ill-fated men, for, by order of the general, the soldiers were slaying his companions who were shut up in another part of the house. The loud cries of the dying fell upon ears already suspicious, and Fritigern at once perceived the treacherous trick.
He drew his sword and with great courage dashed quickly from the banqueting-hall, rescued his men from their threatening doom and incited them to slay the Romans. Thus these valiant men gained the chance they had longed for–to be free to die in battle rather than to perish of hunger–and immediately took arms to kill the generals Lupicinus and Maximus. Thus that day put an end to the famine of the Goths and the safety of the Romans, for the Goths no longer as strangers and pilgrims, but as citizens and lords, began to rule the inhabitants and to hold in their own right all the northern country as far as the Danube.
When the Emperor Valens heard of this at Antioch, he made ready an army at once and set out for the country of Thrace. Here a grievous battle took place and the Goths prevailed. The Emperor himself was wounded and fled to a farm near Hadrianople. The Goths, not knowing that an emperor lay hidden in so poor a hut, set fire to it (as is customary in dealing with a cruel foe), and thus he was cremated in royal splendor. Plainly it was a direct judgment of God that he should be burned with fire by the very men whom he had perfidiously led astray when they sought the true faith, turning them aside from the flame of love into the fire of hell. From this time the [Goths], in consequence of their glorious victory, possessed Thrace and Dacia Ripensis as if it were their native land.
– Getica, Jordanes, 6th Century AD
