The Storm from the North

CHAPTER 10 · 376–410 · The Rise and Fall of Rome, 264 BC – AD 476

Follow the arrows from the right edge of the map, because that is where this chapter begins — out on the steppe, beyond every Roman category. Around 370 the Huns, mounted archers of unknown origin and unprecedented effectiveness, shatter the Alan and Gothic worlds north of the Black Sea. The point is not that they attack Rome — for decades they mostly don’t — it is that they make the whole barbarian world move: in 376 the entire Tervingian Gothic people, perhaps 100,000 souls, appears on the Danube begging admission to the empire. Note the shape of the event — refugees, not invaders. The easte

The turn: Adrianople, 9 August 378.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.