Edirne

In 378 A.D., the main body of the Goths succeeded in forcing the line of the Balkans.

They were not far from Adrianople when the emperor started to attack them, with a splendid army of 60,000 men.

Everyone expected to hear of a victory, for the reputation of invincibility still clung to the legions, and after 600 years of war the disciplined infantry of Rome, rober peditum, whose day had lasted since the Punic Wars, were still reckoned superior, when fairly handled, to any amount of wild barbarians.

But a new chapter of the history of the art of war was just commencing.

They had come to consider it more honorable to fight on horse than on foot, and every chief was followed by his warband of mounted men.

Driven against their will into conflict with the empire, they found themselves face to face into the army that had so long held the world in fear, and had turned back their own ancestors in rout three generations before.

Valens found the main body of the Goths encamped in a great laager on the plain north of Adrianople.

After some abortive negotiations he developed an attack on their front, when suddenly a great body of horsemen charged in on the Roman flank.

In 1358 the Ottoman Turks, the most recent of these enemies, obtained their first foothold on European soil by winning Gallipoli.

Thrace was conquered soon after, and Adrianople became the capital of the Turkish dominions in Europe until 1453, when Constantinople was taken and the Greek Empire came to an end.

During the next 30 years the Turks made themselves masters of almost the whole of the Balkan Peninsula and of many of the islands in the Greek Archipelago.

Another non-Aryan people who established a kingdom in Europe were the Magyars or Huns, who from the 4th to the 10th centuries constantly attacked the Teutons until they were finally defeated on the Lech by the Emperor Otto I, 955.

Fragmentation among Balkan states and the Byzantine weakness allowed the Ottomans to advance steadily through Thrace, Macedonia and surrounding regions.

Under Murad I, the Ottomans captured Adrianople and made it their new capital, renaming the city Edirne.

Edirne became the political and military centre for Balkan expansion.

By the late 14th century, the Ottoman state had evolved from a small Anatolian frontier principality into one of the dominant powers of the Balkans in the eastern Mediterranean world.

Then the fire of jealousy and hatred, which is so aflame today in the heart of Mr. Easton, became ablaze in his heart and he repeatedly planned to murder Bahá'u'lláh.

Again he sought to poison Bahá'u'lláh in Adrianople and, according to trustworthy authorities, attempted to do so twice, but failing to accomplish his design, availed himself of a new scheme and cried out that others had sought to poison him and take his life.

It is an evident point that a weak and defeated enemy always stoops to such pretexts and seeks to resist his opponents through secret means and subtle designs.

On the contrary, the victorious and powerful party has no need of employing such means, for if Bahá'u'lláh had sought to destroy 'Azal, He was not impotent and needed no such method for the execution of His plan.

Discipline, organization, legion upon legion, as you said.

From the Punic Wars to Adrianople, from Scipio Africanus to Valens and beyond, the Roman soldier was a man on foot who did not run.

We are Roman.

Yeah.

And he wouldn't return for three years.

So this wasn't a huge battle by the standards of history.

It wasn't a Cannae or Adrianople.

It wasn't even Belisarius' victory at Dara.

Roman survivors will later scour the battlefield for their emperor, but Flavius Valens' body will never be found.

The defeat at Adrianople won't just mean that the Eastern Roman Empire needs a new ruler.

This battle will also signal the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire, a slow decline that will culminate almost a century later when the last emperor in the West is forced from the throne on September fourth, four seventy-six CE.

Hello, History Daily listeners.

On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is September 4th, 476 CE, the end of the Roman Empire.

[instrumental music plays] It's January 381 CE in Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, almost two and a half years after the Battle of Adrianople.

34-year-old Emperor Theodosius takes a seat on his throne in the grand palace and signals to his officials that he's ready to receive visitors.

until he should have reduced certain towns

and districts in those quarters to subjection under the turkish power fortune did not forsake the young soldier but everything speedily succeeded to the utmost of his desire having fulfilled the duties which he had to perform and the ottoman empire being enlarged beyond expectation his renown began to extend even among foreign nations Being returned to Adrianople, although no foreign enemies were heard of, he met with an adversary at home, to all appearance more dangerous than any against whom he had ever been opposed.

An adventurer came from Scythia, who defied and challenged the whole Turkish court, demanding if any one dared encounter him in arms, and prove himself in fight against him.

The order of combat which he proposed was was that both champions should be stripped to their shirts and being enclosed in a straight and narrow place should with their swords alone decide the issue of the contest it is not possible to ascertain what prompted this barbarian to offer a fight so brutal and disgusting whether he followed the dictates of a reckless and savage nature or whether he thought by proposing so horrible a danger to deter all from accepting the challenge and thus without endangering himself to retire with glory and perchance with a reward for his show of valour in order to animate some one of his servants to this combat amurath proposed a great recompense to whomever should engage in it and come off the conqueror there was no one who did not abhor the thought of obtaining honour by means so detestable but the courage and lofty spirit of our albanian overcoming every consideration he advanced towards the scythian and among other things told him that although such kinds of fight were fit only for fierce and savage beasts and that valiant men might and ought to decline them yet that for once he would contemn and neglect the safety of his own person and make a present of his blood to amurath and to his own companions to whom the scythian answered in a contemptuous manner calling him boy and child for he was so young as to appear but a beardless youth the place for the combat being then arranged as the barbarian had demanded they were both stripped entirely naked and thus leaping into the lists they excited by such an unwonted spectacle an extraordinary interest in the minds of the beholders and howbeit to use the language of lavardin did assail the hearts of the regardants.

with great alacrity they had advanced their ensigns as far as the borders of mizia when their progress was checked by the refusal of george brankovich commonly called the despot of servia to suffer them to pass through his territories this man was advanced in years and without religion making a mock of both the christian and mohammedan faith he was inclined to favor the turks on account of the marriage of his daughter kathagosina with amurath and because of his hatred of the hungarians especially against yanush hanyadi the despot of transylvania who was in possession of certain towns and places of vervea which he claimed for himself upon the approach of scandabeg to the borders of his territory he caused all the passes to be guarded so as to prevent the entrance of the albanian army ambassadors were despatched by scandabeg to remonstrate with the despot and to threaten force if he refused to grant a passage through his country but he remained deaf to the entreaties and threats of scandabeg who greatly against his inclination and with a full conviction of the dangers and difficulties to which he should be exposed resolved to put his threats into execution but although he might doubtless have forced his way through the despot's territories Yet, during the delay occasioned by this unfriendly conduct of Brankovic, events occurred which rendered the good intention of the Epirotes towards the Hungarians vain and fruitless.

Ulazlo and his army, having marched through Wallachia and passed over the Danube, came to Varna, with the intention to unite their forces with those which were at sea, and thence pass into Romania, Footnote.

The country of Varna is a champagne valley beyond the confines of Mysia upon the sea called Maggiore, four days' journey from Adrianople between two promontories, upon one of which is seated Galata, on the other Macropolis.

On the left of the valley where Galata stands is a large marsh.

And he had the rabbinate in several cities.

His first was in Adrianople, and there were quite a number of Talmideh HaChomim living there, most of them refugees.

But in that town, the various Kehillus maintained a rigid separation from each other.

Each community bound its members that they wouldn't cross over to another kehillah or even pray in the shul of a different community.

And he becomes known, in fact, as the Makhaber, the author.

Now, he married several times.

The first was while he was in Adrianople in his early 30s to the daughter of Reb Yitzhak Saba.

They had at least four children, although tragically, in 1534, a plague took the lives of his wife and three children.

In 1358, the Ottoman Turks, the most recent of these enemies, obtained their first foothold on European soil by winning Gallipoli.

Thrace was conquered soon after, and Adrianople became the capital of the Turkish dominions in Europe until 1453, when Constantinople was taken and the Greek Empire came to an end.

During the next 30 years, the Turks made themselves masters of almost the whole of the Balkan Peninsula and of many of the islands in the Greek Archipelago.

Another non-Aryan people who established a kingdom in Europe were the Magyars or Huns, who from the 4th to the 10th centuries constantly attacked the Teutons until they were finally defeated on the Lech by the Emperor Otto I, 955.