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to debate the issue. The generals themselves were deeply divided, but which generals argued for which plan is unclear: in the aftermath of the disaster, contemporaries strove to shield their favourites from blame and shift it onto others, a task made easier by the death of almost all those who had witnessed the debate. Thus Ammianus claims that Sebastianus led the group which argued for an immediate assault on the Goths, while the magister equitum Victor led those who argued for the delay that would guarantee victory. Eunapius, by contrast, defended Sebastianus, as is clear even from the very confused Eunapian chronology preserved by Zosimus.[161] Regardless, the council decided on the course of swift action. Valens favoured it, and his civilian officials played upon his natural jealousy, suggesting that he ought not to share with Gratian the glory of an inevitable victory.

Roman victory was, after all, expected by everyone, not least the Gothic leader Fritigern. At Adrianople, within striking distance of the imperial army, he showed himself more eager for a peaceful settlement than at any time since the very first crossing of the Danube. Perhaps he feared risking battle in the continuing absence of the Greuthungi under Alatheus and Saphrax, whom he had long since sent for. Perhaps, on the other hand, he worried that the Goths could not defeat a proper imperial field army when their victories had thus far come only against smaller, provincial commands. Be that as it may, on 8 August he sent a Christian priest and some provincials of humble status to offer terms to the emperor: he and his followers, poor exiles driven from their own lands and with no place else to go, wanted only Thrace with its crops and its lands. In exchange for that, he could offer the emperor lasting peace. Thus ran Fritigern’s public message. With it came a private message for Valens himself, in which the Goth assured the emperor that he really did want peace, but that for him to enforce himself upon his followers, the emperor would have to keep his army mustered and active as a visible threat to the Goths. Valens distrusted these overtures, and at any rate wanted very much to fight a battle he was convinced he could win.[162]

Thus on the morning of the 9th, leaving his civilian court officials and his treasury safely inside the walls of Adrianople, he marched his troops northeastward out of their encampment into the rolling plain where Fritigern and his army were based. We cannot really be sure how many men either side fielded, but tens of thousands of men went into battle on that August morning. Not long before noon, the Romans spotted the Gothic camp, probably near the modern village of Muratgali. Massing on a low ridge line in front of their wagon circle, the Gothic warriors were well rested and eager for battle. Valens began to dispose his troops in line of battle, cavalry units on each wing, and the mass of his infantry in the centre. Neither side was as prepared for a pitched battle as they might have been: the left wing of the Roman army was still scattered in columns-of-march, while the Greuthungi under Alatheus and Saphrax had not yet arrived. Fritigern therefore played for time, sending envoys to beg for peace while the imperial forces roasted in the blazing sun, and choked on the fires which he had lit to punish them further. Watching as the condition of his troops deteriorated, Valens thought better of his refusal to negotiate – possibly he even decided wait for Gratian – and made ready to send higher-ranking officials to meet representatives of the Goths.[163] This was a mistake, and one cannot imagine Valentinian or Constantius Ⅱ opening protracted negotiations with the enemy while their soldiers’ readiness withered away in the wake of a forced march. Yet as so often happened in ancient battles, fighting began by accident, before either side was ready.

Two units of the elite scholae palatinae, the Scutarii under Cassio and the Sagitarii under Bacurius, probably on the right wing and near to the emperor where scholae were usually posted,