Crisis of 376 CE, Battle of Adrianople, and roots of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire

Great book suggestions all!

And as far as audio books vs. regular...I have never listened to an audio book but don't see anything wrong with it. If I had a longer commute to work audio books would be great.

 

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Well, I have a one hour commute to and from work every day. I can listen to music and the news for a little while, but then I get bored. I find it that history audio books tend to stimulate my brain a little more and make the grind more bearable.

 

Continuation of OP Post

THE BATTLEFIELD AT ADRIANOPLE

Here is a chart of the battle to understand why this tragedy befell the Romans



As you can see, the smaller Roman calvary was repelled by the Barbarian gothic calvary, and then the Roman flanks were left exposed to calvary attacks.

The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus said that Valens, impatient due to Gratian's failure to show up, and receiving faulty intelligence that the enemy force was much smaller than it really was, decided to give battle.

and thus the disaster unfolded:

 

Nice coins and write-up, @Sallent . I see so many siliquae clipped, even to the point of them missing all their legends. Maybe I'm asking an obvious question here, but what were the silver shavings/clippings used for? Certainly not small change, or is that possible? To melt down for other purposes? You'd have to clip a lot of coins to get enough silver for a significant new artifact, but I suppose a merchant might handle enough coins that if he shaved a bit off each one, it could really add up.

 

Very nice write-up. That said, the Third Century for the Roman Empire was, indeed, a near fatal train wreck: rebellion and civil war, incessant barbarian invasion, hyperinflation with economic collapse, plague, etc.




Fortunately, by the end of the Third Century, Rome was able to control the internal turmoil, fend off the foreign threats, reunify the Empire, and regain stability. Otherwise, the Roman Empire would have split apart permanently before the fourth century. (I can only wonder what form the Eastern Empire would have taken since Constantinople wasn't an important capital city till the fourth century.)

Two good books about the vibrant culture and flourishing social world of the Roman Empire despite the almost insurmountable stresses of the Third Century Crisis:

Pat Southern's "The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine"


and Michael Grant's "The Climax of Rome."


I love the write-ups. Thank you.

 

GRATIAN:


RI Gratian 367-383 CE AE 17mm Reduced Folles Leading captive XP banner labarum

VALENS:


RI Valens AD 364-378 AE Red Follis Siscia Mint

 

My only SILIQUA:


RI Arcadius AR Siliqua 383-408 CE Roma Seated

 

This thread has been both enjoyable and educational.

 

Sallent, great coin and write up.

Doug

 

Another of my former coins!



I think you also have a green Hadrian As that I had the pleasure of owning as well, IIRC

 

Sure do!

 

Sallent => congrats on scoring that nice OP-addition

Ummm, I merely have very humble examples of these two fellas ... but I love 'em

Valens



Gratian

 

Wow! Fascinating! Well done, Sallent!

 

Great writeup, great coins, and great books. What a thread!

1 Valens and 2 Gratian:
siliqua, Arles (known as "Constantina" at the time)


siliqua, Aquileia


AE 2, Siscia

 

That's a nice little Valens, his Siliquae are fine quality but affordable. I won't swamp you're post with my examples.

Though I do respectfully disagree with one thing in your article, which I enjoyed reading. You stated that the Battle of Adrianople caused the decline of the Western Empire, this is kind of true, like it showed the barbarians that Rome wasn't what it used to be and they became more ambitious, but as for military losses at Adrianople the Western Empire didn't lose any armies. There were some officers from the Western Roman Empire stationed in Valen's army, Magnus Maximus comes to mind, but aside from a few officers killed the Western Empire was left unscathed.
What doomed the Western Roman armies was the Civil wars of Maximus & Theodosius I in 388 CE and Eugenius & Theodosius in 394. Those two wars saw the cream of the crop of the Western Army destroyed or reassigned to the Eastern Empire by Theodosius after the Battle of the Save and Frigidus River.

 

Long-time-no-see, Mag-Max ... how is school treatin' ya?

 

Been good my Canadian amigo, thanks for asking!
School is well, school! That's the reason why I've been absent from CT for awhile, for better or worse.

 

Is it that bad? Are you having nightmares where you show up to class without pants? Or you forgot to go to a class for the whole semester, but remember that you had the class during the last week?

 

Hey, good to hear from you MM. Keep geetin dat ejumacshun so's ya dont end up like da rest a us yokels. *banjo music*

 

Lol!
The craziest thing to happen to me was when I was at a weekend gathering with my best friends, we played some Xbox and had a few(lot) of beers. Anyhow I woke up with my pants on my head. Still don't remember how that happened.