Editing Goths (section)

===Arrival of the Huns (about 375)===
{{See also|Migration Period|Hlöðskviða}}
[[Image:Gizur and the Huns.jpg|thumb|''[[Gizur]] challenges the Huns'' by [[Peter Nicolai Arbo]], 1886]]
Around 375 the Huns overran the [[Alans]], an [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] people living to the east of the Goths, and then, along with Alans, invaded the territory of the Goths.<ref>{{cite book
 |last1        = Gibbon
 |first1       = Edward
 |author-link1 = Edward Gibbon
 |year         = 1880
 |orig-date    = 1781
 |title        = The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
 |url          = https://books.google.com/books?id=b_QYAAAAYAAJ
 |volume       = 3
 |location     = Philadelphia
 |publisher    = J.B. Lippincott
 |page         = 29
 |access-date  = 10 December 2022
 |quote        = Ammianus [...] and [[Jordanes|Jornandes]] [...] describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.
 |archive-date = 10 December 2022
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20221210022301/https://books.google.com/books?id=b_QYAAAAYAAJ
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref>{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=81–83}} A source for this period is the Roman historian [[Ammianus Marcellinus]], who wrote that Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdoms in Scythia began in the 370s.<ref name="M_XXI_II_1">{{harvnb|Marcellinus|1862}}, [[:Wikisource:Roman History/Book XXXI#II|Book XXI, II]], 1. "The following circumstances were the original cause of all the destruction and various calamities which the fury of Mars roused up, throwing everything into confusion by his usual ruinous violence: the people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a race savage beyond all parallel."</ref> It is possible that the Hunnic attack came as a response to the Gothic expansion eastwards.{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=81–83, 94–100, 331–332}}

Upon the suicide of Ermanaric (died 376), the Greuthungi gradually fell under Hunnic domination. [[Christopher I. Beckwith]] suggests that the Hunnic thrust into [[Europe]] and the Roman Empire was an attempt to subdue the independent Goths in the west.{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=331–32}} The Huns fell upon the Thervingi, and Athanaric sought refuge in the mountains (referred to as [[Caucaland]] in the sagas).{{sfn|Wolfram|1990|p=73}} [[Ambrose]] makes a passing reference to Athanaric's royal titles before 376 in his ''De Spiritu Sancto'' (On the Holy Spirit).{{sfn|Ambrose|2019|p=Book I, Preface, Paragraph 15}}

Battles between the Goths and the Huns are described in the "[[Hlöðskviða]]" (The Battle of the Goths and Huns), a medieval Icelandic saga. The sagas recall that [[Gizur]], king of the [[Geats]], came to the aid of the Goths in an epic conflict with the Huns, although this saga might derive from a later Gothic-Hunnic conflict.{{sfn|Maenchen-Helfen|1973|pp=152–55}}

Although the Huns successfully subdued many of the Goths who subsequently joined their ranks, Fritigern approached the [[Eastern Roman Empire|Eastern Roman]] emperor [[Valens]] in 376 with a portion of his people and asked to be allowed to settle on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even assisted the Goths in their crossing of the river (probably at the fortress of [[Durostorum]]).{{sfn|Kulikowski|2006|p=130}} The Gothic evacuation across the Danube was probably not spontaneous, but rather a carefully planned operation initiated after long debate among leading members of the community.{{sfn|Heather|2010|p=69}} Upon arrival, the Goths were to be disarmed according to their agreement with the Romans, although many of them still managed to keep their arms.{{sfn|Kulikowski|2006|p=130}} The [[Moesogoths]] settled in Thrace and [[Moesia]].<ref>{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Goth|volume= IV |short=x}}</ref>