Pontic Campaign (Abrittus)

The Pontic Campaign is a war between the Second Roman Republic, the Sassanid Empire and their Antic, Slavic, Gothic and Bosporan allies on one side, and mostly nomadic peoples (Huns, Alani, Onogurs and a few Slavic tribes) on the other side.

It took place in 372-374 and ended with the annihilation of Black Huns, "free" Sarmatians, Western Alani, Onogurs and Sabirs as peoples, the death of hundreds of thousands of nomads and the enslavement of even more, the establishment of the Kingdom of the Antes and Roman control over much of the pontic steppe.

Huns and Alani had migrated into the pontic space in the 350s and overthrown the Gothic Empire. Warriors under Hunnic leadership as well as refugees spilled into Roman Dacia and threatened the Danube border throughout the 360s. After initial defeats, the Roman Republic was able to defend the Danube limes, and border civitates let in limited amounts of refugees in an organised manner. North of the Danube, though, the attacks and migratory movements effaced the old order in Magna Germania and destroyed existing proto-state and tribal structures there, creating further potentially dangerous instability at the gates of the Roman Republic.

Under the impression of these dangers, the Roman Maximum Collegium Militum, the Conventum and the Consuls abandoned the predominantly defensive military doctrine of the early Second Republic. A punitive campaign against the Huns and their allies was conducted on the Pannonian plains in 367. Diplomatic and military preparations were undertaken for a great joint war effort which would defuse the powder keg of the "wild field" once and for all - or so it was hoped.

When another Hunnic attack hit the Roman civitas of Prioboridava at the North-Eastern border of the Republic, East of the Carpathian mountains, in April 372, the Consuls Alexandros and Pamphylikos, together with the Sassanid Shahanshah Shapur II., the Antic King Bozh and a number of smaller tribes began their offensives.

///to be continued ///