One of the main political aspects which one can notice in the world of Late Antiquity is the growing power of the barbaric tribes, both outside and inside the Roman Empire. The term ‘barbarian’, initially referring to the space beyond the borders of Greek civilization, will suffer an extension in the Later Empire, gathering under the same name those who are not Roman citizens and whose image is reconstructed almost exclusively thanks to Roman sources of the 4th to 6th century such as Orosius, Zosimus, Jordanes, Socrates the Scholastic or Sozomen. We must therefore take into account the limitations of objectivity imposed by ethnocentrism and mentality.

The Goths,located west and north of the Black Sea, in the region between the Danube and Don river, organized lots of raids in the 3rd century, and in the year 332 their conflict with emperor Constantine the Great is solved only by signing a foedus (treaty) which proves its effectiveness for three decades. In this amount of time Goths are occasionally recruited as auxiliary troops, for instance by emperor Constantius in 360 or by usurper Procopius in 365. The abbreviated histories of Eutropius and Aurelius Victor mention several serious wars of these populations against the Roman Empire during the reign of emperors Decius, Gallienus and Constantine, the latter winning important battles against the Visigoths led by Rausimodus.

During the joint reign of Valentinian and Valens the barbarians support the military forces of Constantinople who offer the crown to the pagan intellectual Procopius. Valens will be fighting heavily against the Goths in the years 367-369. Their tribes, led by Fritigern and Alaviv, had requested refuge in the Roman Empire due to Hun pressure and indeed they would receive the opportunity to establish themselves in Thrace as foederati, which is in fact the beginning of their great mi