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or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at into History.com. It's August 9th 378 CE in Adrianople in the Eastern Roman Empire and a battle is raging.

Flavius Valens pushes his way through the ranks of Roman soldiers

until he's right on the front line.

As soldiers on either side interlocked their shields,

Valen stabs his swords over the top at the defensive wall they make,

hacking at the enemy soldiers beyond.

As Roman Emperor, the 49-year-old Balin should be directing the battle from a place of safety. But right now he The The Roman Empire is now so large that it's impossible for one man to rule.

85 years ago, a new system of government was introduced that effectively split the empire into two halves, each with its own emperor.

Valens is the emperor in the east.

Another man rules the west, but both sections of the Roman Empire are coming under

pressure from an external enemy, a powerful Germanic tribe known as the Goths.

And today, the Eastern Roman Army under Emperor Valens is attempting to push the Goths out of Roman territory, but the Goths are fighting back.

As Valens takes another swipe with his sword, he hears the thunder of galloping horses.

A cavalry charge is about to hit the front line,

but since he's in the middle of the action,

Valens doesn't know whether it's Roman cavalry or the Goths.

Valens gets his answer only a moment later

when the Roman line disintegrates.

The Gothic cavalry has changed the course of the battle.

...