LATE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE GOTHIC INCURSIONS
This research paper examines the relations between the late Roman Empire and the Gothic tribes which pressed upon Rome's frontiers in the southeast Balkans in the late 4th century A.D. The focal point is the period covered by Ammianus Marcellinus in his The Late Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378) which culminated in a devastating defeat by the Goths of the Romans outside Adrianople in Thrace in 378. The vulnerability of the empire to barbarian pressures in this area was revealed by the Gothic wars of the mid-3rd century. Despite the efforts of its reforming Illyrian emperors of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, which temporarily restored an uneasy peace on its Balkan frontiers, Rome found itself militarily overextended and internally weakened by a series of developments which rendered it incapable of withstanding a new surge of Gothic peoples across the Danube in the 370s which was in turn prompted by powerful demographic pressures from the east.
Due to its superiority in organization, governance and military prowess, Rome had extended its sway by the time of Caesar Antonius Pius (139-161 A.D.) over all the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and most of Western Europe. Its principal frontiers extended along three great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube in Europe, and the Euphrates in the Near East. Under the rule of Augustus (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) peace and prosperity had been established over this vast expanse. Augustus placed almost all his legions and supporting auxiliary troops along the frontiers. Williams said "there was no home army, no Italian command or centrally based reserve" (4). Nevertheless, these isolated units, roughly 300,000, were able to hold own along an elongated frontier (1,650 miles from the North Sea to the Black Sea). Their principal opponents were disunited, scattered barbarian tribes in Europe and the Parthian Empire in Asia which until it was overthrown by th...