This article is taken from
Figaro Histoire
“When Europe faced the great invasions”
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Discover in this issue the history of the demographic, political and cultural upheavals that affected Europe from the 4th to the 10th century.
“When Europe faced great invasions” Le Figaro History
Adrianople (378), the rebellion of Gothic immigrants
The Battle of Adrianople, on August 9, 378, marked the beginning of the barbarian invasions.
The Goths who defeated Emperor Valens that day were the fathers of those who, in 410, sacked Rome under the command of Alaric and who, a few years later, founded the first Roman-barbarian kingdom in the south of Gaul.
However, these Barbarians had entered the empire not as invaders but as immigrants, with the agreement of the imperial government.
It all began in 376, when part of the Goths appeared on the banks of the Danube, the border of the Eastern Empire.
Peasants and shepherds of the steppes, the Goths spoke a Germanic language, but for the Romans they were related to the Sarmatians and the Scythians, whose way of life they shared, and this is also how they are often called in Roman and Greek sources: Scythians.
The Romans knew them well: they had used them as mercenaries for almost two centuries and the Church…
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