Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).

But the result was far other than he expected. For the Huns, who are shrewd in arriving at conclusions, suspecting that there was some large force farther off, disregarded the troops which they had seen, and who had disposed themselves to rest, as if there was nothing to disturb them; then, when the moon broke into the darkness of night, they chose what seemed to be the best course, crossed the river by a ford, and fearing lest some informer should get ahead of them and frighten off the enemy who were at a distance, they made a swift attack on Athanaricus himself.

As he was stunned by their first onset, they forced him to take speedy refuge in the steep mountains, after losing a few of their own men. Athanaricus, troubled[*](Cf. cura constrictus, xx, 4, 19.) by this unexpected attack and still more through fear of what might come, had walls built high, skirting the lands of the Taifali from the banks of the river Gerasus[*](To-day the Pruth on the eastern frontier of ancient Dacia.) as far as the Danube, thinking that by this hastily but diligently constructed barrier[*](For lorica in this sense, cf. 15, 4, below.) his security and safety would be assured.

But while this well-planned work was being pushed on, the Huns swiftly fell upon him, and would have crushed him at once on their arrival had they not been so loaded down with booty that they gave up the attempt. Yet when the report spread widely among the other Gothic peoples, that a race of men hitherto unknown had now arisen from a hidden nook of the earth, like a tempest of snows from the high mountains, and was seizing or destroying everything in its way, the greater part of the people, who,

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worn out by lack of the necessities of life, had deserted Athanaricus, looked for a home removed from all knowledge of the savages; and after long deliberation what abode to choose they thought that Thrace offered them a convenient refuge, for two reasons: both because it has a very fertile soil, and because it is separated by the mighty flood of the Hister from the fields that were already exposed to the thunderbolts of a foreign war[*](Or perhaps war-god, since Mars was born in Thrace; see Manilius, iv. 691, Threce Martem sortita colonum; cf. Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, iv. 25.); and the rest of the nation as if with one mind agreed to this plan.

Therefore, under the lead of Alavivus, they[*](376 A.D.) took possession of the banks of the Danube, and sending envoys to Valens, with humble entreaty begged to be received, promising that they would not only lead a peaceful life but would also furnish auxiliaries, if circumstances required.

While this was happening in foreign parts, terrifying rumours spread abroad that the peoples of the north were stirring up new and uncommonly great commotions: that throughout the entire region which extends from the Marcomanni and the Quadi to the Pontus, a savage horde of unknown peoples, driven from their abodes by sudden violence, were roving about the river Hister in scattered

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bands with their families.