Scarcely one third of the whole army escaped. Nor, except the battle of Cannae, is so destructive a slaughter recorded in our annals;[32] though, even in the times of their prosperity, the Romans have more than once been called upon to deplore the uncertainty of war, and have for a time succumbed to evil Fortune. FOOTNOTES: [22] Valens was the Eastern emperor from 364 until his death in the battle of Adrianople in 378. His brother Valentinian was emperor in the West from 364 to 375. Gratian, son of Valentinian, was the real sovereign in the West when the Visigoths crossed the Danube. [23] That is, upon the writer's people, the Romans. [24] The Marcomanni and Quadi occupied a broad stretch of territory along the upper Danube in what is now the northernmost part of Austria-Hungary. Pontus was a province in northern Asia Minor. [25] Moeller (_Histoire du Moyen Age_, p. 58), estimates that the Goths who now entered Thrace numbered not fewer than 200,000 grown men, accompanied by their wives and children. The Italian Villari, in his _Barbarian Invasions of Italy_, Vol. I., p. 49, gives the same estimate. The tendency of contemporary chroniclers to exaggerate numbers has misled many older writers. Even Moeller's and Villari's estimate would mean a total of upwards of a million people. That there were so many may well be doubted. The Vandals played practically as important a part in the history of their times as did the Visigoths; yet it is known that when the Vandals passed through Spain, in the first half of the fifth century, they numbered not more than 20,000 fighting men, with their wives and children. [26] Nice was about thirty miles east of Adrianople. [27] The Visigoths under Fridigern finally took their position near Adrianople and Valens led his army into that vicinity and pitched his camp, fortifying it with a rampart of palisades. From the Western emperor, Gratian, a messenger came asking that open conflict be postponed until the army from Rome could join that from Constantinople. But Valens, easily flattered by some of his over-confident generals, foolishly decided to bring on a battle at once. Apparently he did not dream that defeat was possible. [28] After the battle here described, which occurred in the open plain, the victorious Goths proceeded to the siege of the city itself, in which, however, they were unsuccessful. The taking of fortified towns was an art in which the Germans were not skilled.