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were Pannonian, from the region of Lake Balaton in modern Hungary, and therefore from a region proverbially backward, the punchline in many a late Roman joke. This cultural stereotype deeply affects their treatment in our narrative sources, which invariably depict them as loathsome and cruel, a judgement mitigated only by Valentinian’s undeniable prowess as a general. Ammianus, the cultured Greek from Syria, found them unspeakable: Valens was subrusticum hominem, a half-witted man, who would have been murdered by his soldiers, had fate not spared him to suffer greater disaster.[109] Everything we know of Valens, in both Ammianus and the rich Greek historical tradition, is uniformly hostile. Our own interpretations of his reign, like those of his contemporaries, remain coloured not just by such slanders, but by his ultimate fate: killed by the Goths, along with most of the eastern Roman army, on the field of Adrianople. It has recently been argued that Valens was by no means a disastrous emperor, and certainly not the incompetent he is so often made out to have been. He was, on the contrary, a more or less average late Roman commander who faced an impossible concatenation of circumstances that ultimately brought him down.[110] Though that assessment may be a tritle generous, there can be no question that both Valens and Valentinian faced formidable challenges upon their accession to the throne.

The prospect of civil war between Julian and Constantius, and the fact that Julian launched his Persian war immediately upon the death of Constantius, led to the customary upheavals along the frontiers. As in the 340s and 350s, these disturbances were worst along the Rhine, though the Quadi, relieved of the pressure of their Sarmatian neighbours, required repeated campaigning by Valentinian to control. This demonstrates the structural dangers inherent in the standard imperial policy towards the barbarians. Constantius’ settlement of affairs between the Danube and Tisza had bred resentment amongst the Quadi, who had suffered demeaning punitive raids at the same time as the Sarmatians were suppressed, but it had also so strengthened them that as soon as the opportunity presented itself – as it did with Julian’s departure and death – they were able to launch devastating attacks on the provinces of Noricum and Valeria. So confident had the Quadi become in the security of their position that some of their envoys dared to address Valentinian as an equal during the campaigning season of 375. His outrage at this effrontery triggered the stroke which killed him, leaving the western provinces to his sons, one an untested youth named Gratian, the other, Gratian’s half-brother Valentinian Ⅱ, still only a toddler. Since 365, when they had divided the empire and its field army between them, the elder Valentinian and Valens had declined to interfere in one another’s affairs. Valens made no effort to intervene in the West upon his brother’s premature death, just as Valentinian had left Valens to his fate in the long series of disturbances that had faced him in the decade after 365. The earliest of these was the usurpation of Procopius, and it was from that venture that Valens’ Gothic campaigns ultimately stemmed.

The Usurpation of Procopius and the Breakdown of the Gothic Peace

Procopius could claim kinship with the Constantinian dynasty whose main line had died with Julian. He launched his usurpation at Constantinople in 365, suborning some troops who were en route to the Danube frontier, and almost succeeded in bringing down Valens’ new and insecure regime. Only the opportune treachery of some old associates of Constantius Ⅱ saved Valens, and Procopius was captured and executed in 366. Several Gothic kings had lent support to Procopius, supposedly sending 3,000 soldiers, but they excused themselves on the grounds of their treaty with the house of Constantine, whose legitimate heir they had taken Procopius to be.[111] We cannot tell if they believed their own excuses, but we do know their services were well rewarded: the largest hoard of