Today is August 9. On this day in history, in 378, the Visigoths crushed the Roman Army in the Battle of Adrianople. This battle is one of the crucial conflicts in human history and for at least two reasons, it is a turning point in our history.

No fewer than fifteen major battles and sieges have occurred at or near Adrianople. The city and area are located in Eastern Thrace in what is now the western edge of the Turkish territory still remaining in Europe. Edirne is the modern Turkish name of the place. The name "Adrianople" comes from the Roman Emperor (H)adrian.

By this time the Roman Emperor had been divided, de facto, if not yet de jure into two divisions, the West and the East. Valens was Eastern Roman Emperor.

The Visigoths had been driven west under pressure from the Huns and finally had been allowed to cross the Danube and settle in Roman territory. For various reasons, not relevant here, the Visigoths rose in arms against Roman authority.

The details of the battle do not matter. It is the result and aftermath that is important.

The Roman Army in the battle was the traditional infantry army organized into legions, cohorts, maniples, centuries, and so on.

The Gothic Army was primarily horsemen.

The Romans managed to get themselves surrounded a la Cannae and were massacred. About two-thirds of the Roman Army perished on that bloody day--all in all about 20,000 men. The Emperor Valens fell in the fray.

What is the aftermath? Roman power in the West speedily diminished under Gothic and other barbarian attacks. Neither the strength or the will could be mustered to resist. A mere one hundred years after the battle, Rome, itself was occupied by barbarians and the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed.

The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople persisted for eleven hundred years and saved the West from barbarian and Mohammedan hordes while the nation states were building in Europe.

The second result of this battle is the eclipse of infantry in favor of horsemen. The Roman Army in the East soon became a mobile horse army. Gone were the invincible infantry legions of Julius Caesar, Marius, Sulla, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius and the other great Roman military leaders.

With the rise of horsemen, came the rise of feudalism. Cavalry is much more expensive than infantry. It took some wealth to maintain a cavalry force and parcels of land were passed out in exchange for furnishing the ruler with so many horsemen for so much land or honors

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a thousand years later, infantry started to come back in some of the wars. Look at the Scots under Wallace and the famous Swiss mercenaries. These formations mastered the use of the pike to ward off the horse warrior attacks.

The development of gunpowder spelled the dawn of a new era for the infantry. The firearm is a great equalizer. The bullet does not distinguish between knight or peasant. Bravery and ability to use sword, lance and shield is immaterial in the face of flying lead. The pike still persisted as an infantry weapon for a couple centuries, but the ascendancy of the horseman was done by the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648.

Read about the battle and the emperor at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valens

Way to go Valens. He rushed in a bit premature because he didn't want to share the glory with his reinforcements and underestimated the numbers he was up against to boot. No wonder he was killed!