After their timely departure, those who had been besieged in Hadrianopolis, having learned from scouts who had been found trustworthy that the neighbouring places were free from enemies, set out at midnight and avoiding the public highways and devising every effort for increasing their speed, hastened with the valuables which they were carrying still safe, through wooded and pathless places, some to Philippopolis and from there to Serdica,See xxi. 10, 3. others to Macedonia, in the hope of finding Valens in those regions (for it was wholly unknown to them that he had fallen in the midst of the storms of battle, or at any rate had taken refuge in a hut, where it was thought that he had been burned to death).

But the Goths, joined with the Huns and the Halani, exceedingly warlike and brave peoples, hardened to the difficulties of severe toils, whom the craft of Fritigern had won over to them by the attractions of wonderful prizes, set up their camp near Perinthus; but mindful of their previous disasters they did not indeed venture to approach or attempt the city itself, but reduced to utter ruin the fertile fields which extend far and wide about it, killing or capturing those who dwelt there.