it seems, that they let the
whole nation of the East Goths (of whom we shall hear more hereafter)
dash across the Danube, and establish themselves in the north of the
present Turkey, to the east of the West Goths.

Then at Marcianopolis, the capital of Lower Moesia, Lupicinus asked
Fridigern and his chiefs to a feast. The starving Goths outside were
refused supplies from the market, and came to blows with the guards.
Lupicinus, half drunk, heard of it, and gave orders for a massacre.
Fridigern escaped from the palace, sword in hand. The smouldering embers
burst into flame, the war-cry was raised, and the villain Lupicinus fled
for his life.

Then began war south of the Danube. The Roman legions were defeated by
the Goths, who armed themselves with the weapons of the dead. Moesia was
overrun with fire and sword. Adrianople was attacked, but in vain. The
slaves in the gold mines were freed from their misery, and shewed the
Goths the mountain-passes and the stores of grain. As they went on, the
Goths recovered their children. The poor things told horrid tales; and
the Goths, maddened, avenged themselves on the Romans of every age and
sex. 'They left,' says St. Jerome, 'nothing alive--not even the beasts
of the field; till nothing was left but growing brambles and thick
forests.'

Valens, the Emperor, was at Antioch. Now he hurried to Constantinople,
but too late. The East Goths had joined the West Goths; and hordes of
Huns, Alans, and Taifalae (detestable savages, of whom we know nothing
but evil) had joined Fridigern's confederacy.

Gratian, Valens' colleague and nephew, son of Valentinian the bear-ward,
had just won a great victory over the Allemanni at Colmar in Alsace; and
Valens was jealous of his glory. He is said to have been a virtuous
youth, whose monomania was shooting. He fell in love with the wild
Alans, in spite of their horse-trappings of scalps, simply because of
their skill in archery; formed a body-guard of them, and passed his time
hunting with them round Paris. Nevertheless, he won this great victory
by the help, it seems, of one Count Ricimer ('ever-powerful'), Count of
the Domestics, whose name proclaims him a German.

Valens was jealous of Gratian's fame; he was stung by the reproaches of
the mob of Constantinople; and he undervalued the Goths, on account of
some successes of his lieutenants, who had recovered much of the plunder
taken by them, and had utterly overpowered the foul T