Traianus (died 9 August 378 at

Adrianople Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis ( Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian border ...

) was a Roman general under Emperor

Valens Valens ( grc-gre, Ουάλης, Ouálēs; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of ...

with whom he died in the

battle of Adrianople The Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic A ...

Life

Between 367 and 368 he held the military office of '' dux Aegypti''. While in office, he and the ''

praefectus augustalis During the Roman Empire, the governor of Roman Egypt ''(praefectus Aegypti)'' was a prefect who administered the Roman province of Egypt with the delegated authority ''( imperium)'' of the emperor. Egypt was established as a Roman province in co ...

'' Eutolmius Tatianus protected the Arian bishop

Lucius of Alexandria Lucius of Alexandria was an Arian who was twice installed as Patriarch of Alexandria, first in 363, during the reign of Athanasius, and the second between 373 and 380, competing with Peter II of Alexandria Patriarch Peter II of Alexandria (died ...

. He was also ordered to rebuild the ''Caesareum'' and he started the building on May 1, 368. Between 371 and 374 he was ''

comes rei militaris ''Comes'' ( ), plural ''comites'' ( ), was a Roman title or office, and the origin Latin form of the medieval and modern title "count". Before becoming a word for various types of title or office, the word originally meant "companion", either i ...

'' in the East, where, together with the

Alamanni The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pre ...

c king

Vadomarius Vadomarius (german: Vadomar) was an Alemannic king and Roman general, who shared power with his brother Gundomadus. After instigating an indecisive campaign in Gaul against the Romans, Vadomarius and his brother signed a treaty with the Roman empe ...

he fought the

Sasanids The Sasanian dynasty was the house that founded the Sasanian Empire, ruling this empire from 224 to 651 AD in Persia (modern-day Iran). It began with Ardashir I, who named the dynasty as ''Sasanian'' in honour of his grandfather (or father), Sasa ...

. At the end of the winter, the Sasanid king

Shapur II Shapur II ( pal, 𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩 ; New Persian: , ''Šāpur'', 309 – 379), also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings ( Shahanshah) of Iran. The longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history, he reign ...

gathered his army and moved against the Roman territory. Emperor

sent Vadomarius and Traianus against him, with a strong army and the order to keep the Sasanids under control but to avoid provoking them into battle. However, at Vagabanta the Sasanid cavalry forced the Roman infantry into contact: the infantry first tried to break contact, but then defeated the enemy. The following encounters had alternate results and so, at the end of summer, the generals signed a truce and retired. In 374, while he commanded the Roman troops in Armenia, he was secretly ordered by Valens to kill king Papas (Pap). Traianus obtained Papas' confidence and invited him to dinner: during the banquet, Traianus left the room and a killer killed Papas. Later he was promoted to the rank of ''

magister peditum ( Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander ...

'' and was sent in

Thracia Thracia or Thrace ( ''Thrakē'') is the ancient name given to the southeastern Balkan region, the land inhabited by the Thracians. Thrace was ruled by the Odrysian kingdom during the Classical and Hellenistic eras, and briefly by the Greek D ...

to fight the Gothic War. In 376 the Goths had been allowed to enter Roman territory but, oppressed by Roman officers, had rebelled. Gathering under the leadership of

Fritigern Fritigern (fl. 370s) was a Thervingian Gothic chieftain whose decisive victory at Adrianople during the Gothic War (376–382) led to favourable terms for the Goths when peace was made with Gratian and Theodosius I in 382. Name ''Fritigern'' appe ...

, the Goths marched towards

. Emperor Valens was at the time at

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...

, in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, where he was preparing the war against the Sasanids. The Emperor decided to send two of his generals, Profuturus and Traianus, to Thracia with fresh troops. The two generals decided to fight the bulk of the enemy army with their Armenian troops, which had proved valiant, and succeeded in pushing the Goths inside the valleys, where they hoped to defeat them by hunger. The Roman troops were, nonetheless, vastly inferior by number to the Goths, and, since the expected reinforcements led by Frigeridus did not arrive, Traianus and Profuturus decided to retire and to unite to the units of

Richomeres Flavius Richomeres or Ricomer (died 393) was a Frank who lived in the late 4th century. He took service in the Roman army and made a career as ''comes'', ''magister militum'', and ''consul''. He was an uncle of the general Arbogastes. He is pos ...

near the city of ''Ad Salices'' ("Near the Willows", close to

Marcianopolis Marcianopolis or Marcianople (Greek: Μαρκιανούπολις), also known as Parthenopolis was an ancient Greek, then Roman capital city and archbishopric in Moesia Inferior. It is located at the site of modern-day Devnya, Bulgaria. The a ...

in Moesia). Here the Romans and the Goths fought the

battle of the Willows The Battle of the Willows (377) took place at a place called ''ad Salices'' ("town by the willows"), or according to Ammianus, a road way-station called ''Ad Salices'' ("by the Willows"); probably located within 15 kilometres of Marcianople (mode ...

: the Romans fought a huge number of Goths (Gothic soldiers with their families) who had entrenched behind a wall of wagons, then forced them to open-field battle. At first the Roman left wing broke, but thanks to the reinforcement of local troops, the Romans were able to sustain the fight until the night came, despite receiving huge losses. When the news of the bloody battle arrived in the East, Valens sent West more troops under the ''magister equitum'' Saturninus, who was to substitute the two generals. When he returned to

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, Valens accused Traianus of cowardice, but thanks to the support of the ''magistri militum''

Arinthaeus Flavius Arintheus (or Arinthaeus; died AD 378) was a Roman army officer who started his career as a middle-ranking officer and rose to senior political and military positions. He served the emperors Constantius II, Julian, Jovian and Valens ...

and Victor, Traianus put the blame on Valens' persecution of the Nicenians. In 378 Traianus was exonerated in favour of

Sebastianus Sebastianus (died 413), a brother of Jovinus, was an aristocrat of southern Gaul. After Jovinus usurped the throne of the western Roman Emperor Honorius in Gaul in 411, he named Sebastianus as Augustus (co-emperor) in 412. Coins bearing Sebast ...

, but he was later recalled in service. Traianus followed Valens, who wanted to defeat the Goths before the arrival from the West of his nephew

Gratian Gratian (; la, Gratianus; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube frontiers and w ...

with the Western army. Valens fought the Goths in the

(August 9, 378); here, after the Roman line was shattered and had fled, Traianus cried that the Emperor had been left alone by his guards. Hearing this Victor sought unsuccessfully to bring a reserve force of Batavi to the emperor's aid. Traianus and the emperor were among the many who fell on the battlefield.Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI XIII,7,8,9,18.

Notes

Sources

* Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, "Traianus 2", ''

The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire ''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...

'', volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 1992, , pp. 921–922. {{DISPLAYTITLE:Traianus (''magister peditum'') 378 deaths 4th-century Romans Ancient murderers Comites rei militaris Gothic War (376–382) Magistri peditum Roman generals killed in action Year of birth unknown

Life

Notes

See also

Sources