Peter Heather

So I guess his advisors said, yeah, okay, we've got an opportunity.

Both Gothic groups were there, not the one.

And the Romans are ambushed from the side when they haven't fully deployed.

And Valens and two-thirds of his army are killed.

They can't.

Amazing walls.

And even more important, they can't get across.

The key revenue-producing areas of the Eastern Empire are coastal Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, Middle East, and Egypt.

Right.

And they are insulated from the threat to the Eastern Empire's European territories.

Okay.

So you can't get at the eastern heartlands.

It means that there is the constant flow of revenues which keeps the army in existence, keeps on coming.

So none of the threats to the empire challenge the key revenue zones of the eastern empire.

The tax base remains intact.

Yes, after a while.

Well, the end result of this conflict is that I think East and West agree that they can't at the moment terminate the Goths' independent existence.

So we get a treaty in 382, I think dragged kicking and screaming out of the empire.

Which recognizes Gothic autonomy on Roman soil.

Within the Balkans.