Battle of Constantinople | |||||||
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Part of the Gothic War of 376–382 and Roman–Germanic Wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Eastern Roman Empire Tanukhids | Goths | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Domnica | Fritigern |
The Battle of Constantinople was a Gothic attack on Constantinople in 378 following the Gothic victory at the Battle of Adrianople. The emperor Valens's widow prepared the defence, and also reinforced the city with Arab warriors, who performed excellently in combat. [1] [2] [3] It is said that the Goths were impressed when one of the Arab warriors stormed out of the city naked, slaughtered enemies, and drank blood from the neck of a decapitated Goth. [2] [3] Other sources maintain that the Goths actually abandoned the attack because they were greatly outnumbered. [4] [5]
In the end, Goths did not enter the city and retreated to Thrace and Moesia. [6]
Attila, frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death, in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.
Alaric I was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.
Theodoricthe Great, also called Theodoric the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patrician of the Eastern Roman Empire. As ruler of the combined Gothic realms, Theodoric controlled an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea. Though Theodoric himself only used the title 'king' (rex), some scholars characterize him as a Western Roman Emperor in all but name, since he ruled a large part of the former Western Roman Empire described as a Res Publica, had received the former Western imperial regalia from Constantinople in 497 which he used, was referred to by the imperial title princeps by the Italian aristocracy and exercised imperial powers recognized in the East, such as naming consuls.
Valens was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of the Roman Empire to rule. In 378, Valens was defeated and killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths, which astonished contemporaries and marked the beginning of barbarian encroachment into Roman territory.
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The Gothic War of 376–382 was one of several Gothic Wars in Roman history in which the Goths fought against the Roman Empire. This particular conflict included the catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople, and is commonly seen as a part— albeit a part of disputed significance— of the century of events leading to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
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