and with great courage dashed quickly from the banqueting-hall,
rescued his men from their threatening doom
and incited them to slay the Romans. Thus these valiant 137
men gained the chance they had longed for--to be free to
die in battle rather than to perish of hunger--and immediately
took arms to kill the generals Lupicinus and
Maximus. Thus that day put an end to the famine of the
Goths and the safety of the Romans, for the Goths no
longer as strangers and pilgrims, but as citizens and lords,
began to rule the inhabitants and to hold in their own
right all the northern country as far as the Danube.

[Sidenote: EMPEROR VALENS DEFEATED AND SLAIN A.D. 378]

When the Emperor Valens heard of this at Antioch, 138
he made ready an army at once and set out for the country
of Thrace. Here a grievous battle took place and the
Goths prevailed. The Emperor himself was wounded and
fled to a farm near Hadrianople. The Goths, not knowing
that an emperor lay hidden in so poor a hut, set fire
to it (as is customary in dealing with a cruel foe), and
thus he was cremated in royal splendor. Plainly it was
a direct judgment of God that he should be burned with
fire by the very men whom he had perfidiously led astray
when they sought the true faith, turning them aside from
the flame of love into the fire of hell. From this time the
Visigoths, in consequence of their glorious victory, possessed
Thrace and Dacia Ripensis as if it were their native
land.