s, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the Romans,
exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun, were exhausted
by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The emperor was persuaded to
send an ambassador to the Gothic camp; the zeal of Richomer, who alone
had courage to accept the dangerous commission, was applauded; and
the count of the domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his
dignity, had proceeded some way in the space between the two armies,
when he was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and
imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded a body
of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with rashness, they
retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same moment, the flying
squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose return was anxiously expected
by the general of the Goths, descended like a whirlwind from the hills,
swept across the plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but
irresistible charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be described in
a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry was abandoned,
surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful evolutions, the
firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to extricate a body of foot,
encompassed, on an open plain, by superior numbers of horse; but the
troops of Valens, oppressed by the weight of the enemy and their own
fears, were crowded into a narrow space, where it was impossible for
them to extend their ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords
and javelins. In the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the
emperor, deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with
an arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii,
who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order and
firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who perceived his
danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless the person of the
emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated by their exhortation,
advanced to his relief: they found only a bloody spot, covered with a
heap of broken arms and mangled bodies, without being able to discover
their unfortunate prince, either among the living or the dead. Their
search could not indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the
circumstances with which some historians have related the death of the
emperor.

By the care of his attendants, Valens