Are they, and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith, and with me today is Associate Professor Kaelin Davenport,

Senior Lecturer in Roman history at Macquarie University and Humboldt Research Fellow at

Guerthy University in Frankfurt, Germany. This is episode CLXVIII, the Battle of Arbitus.

The Goths are leaving Roman territory, and while they successfully sacked some Roman cities,

there have been no lasting damage to the provinces. But the same can't be said for the reputation of

the Emperor. DCS rides with his troops to confront them in battle, becoming the first Roman emperor

to die at the hands of a foreign enemy. Here's Kaelin Davenport. There's been a major crisis in the

Balkans. DCS has been defeated and had to retreat back to Novi on the Danube, and the city of

Philipopolis has fallen to the Goths, and the Greeks are worried that the Goths are going to spread

further into their own territory, looting and pillaging as they go. This appears to have been an

opportunity for a senator in Rome, with the name of Julius Valens, Lachinianus, to take advantage

of DCS absence in the Balkans and the recent failures. The news of these defeats and the loss of

Philipopolis will have certainly made it to Rome. Valens declares himself emperor. This is

mentioned in Aurelius Victor, as well as the epitome De Cosaribus, that shorted version of Aurelius

Victor. But it also appears in a letter of a contemporary, the Bishop Cyprian of Carthage,

who you might remember, provides really important information about the Christian reaction to DCS'

edict of sacrifice. Is this a sort of usurption that is well received though? Because I think the

DCS was one of the Senate's own from memory. DCS is a senator. He's had a long experience as a

provincial governor, under the severance, under Maximinus, may have been a prefect of the city

under Philip. But what we find in the third century is that emperors are only as good as their

most recent victory, or as bad as their most recent defeat. So it is interesting that there's

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