151- Bursting a Blood Vessel

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode one fifty one, Bursting a Blood Vessel. After he defeated Procopius in May, the Eastern Augustus Valens never again faced a serious threat from inside his half of the Empire. By passing that initial test, the word appears to have gone out that he was here to stay and that everyone ought to just get along with their business. However, though he faced no more internal threats during his years governing the Eastern Empire, that did not mean that Valens was not constantly rushing around dealing with external threats. Just as his brother dealt with some new crisis every other week in the West, so too did Valens deal with some new crisis every other week in the East. Broadly speaking, however, there were two big issues that occupied most of his attention. What to do about the goths and what to do about the saxonids. Dealing with both at the same time would prove to be a tricky proposition, and eventually deep concentration on the latter would lead to a mishandling of the former, and then, yeah, you know the rest. Valence spent the rest of March enjoying relative peace in his half of the empire. But in the March '67, it was right back into the thick of things. A first up on the docket was a punitive campaign against the Goths. Now, as you may have noticed, the Goths have receded into the background a bit after being featured prominently during the crisis of the third century. Successive defeats at the hands of Gallienus and Claudius and Aurelian in the February and February had brought an end to their high flying partying. And so they had withdrawn back across the Danube to nurse their hangovers. Since those heady days, the Goths had been acting more as trading partners with and mercenaries for the Romans rather than blood enemies of the Romans. But that was all about to change. Not because the Goths were feeling particularly belligerent again, but because desperate times were about to call for desperate measures. Shortly after Valens became emperor, a smallish Gothic raiding parties had begun to make incursions into Roman territory. A problem, Valen dealt with by transferring two legions into the affected area. These two legions are famous to us however, and not because of the battles they fought with the Goths, but because as they were passing through Constantinople, they were the two legions talked into supporting Procopius's revolt. When the usurper successfully captured Constantinople, he began casting about for allies. And in an interesting twist of fate, those very same Goths the legions had been sent to subdue, turned out to be keen on an alliance. They had always been on good terms with the Constantinians. And with Procopius waving Constantine standard around, supporting his cause seemed to the goths like the right thing to do. If he won, then they would be well positioned for years to come. Except …