Talk:Valens

J.B Bury

The paragraph which notes J.B bury as a 'historian' of 'the period' cannot be correct, he was around in the 1970's. - Obviously he was not a historian of 'the period' of which these battles and events occured. - It should be rewritten since many may confuse 'of the period' with being alive during that time, such as a Cassius Dio etc. Orasis 07:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Sources

I have reinstated a primary source that may have been removed inadvertently. I also made note of actual sources. I also divided a section into two distinct parts--"Barbarian Unrest" and "The Battle of Adrianople." There is still one section here that needs to be looked at wherein the Goths are allied with the Huns. I have not seen sources that place this so early. Up until this point, the Huns were placing a great deal of pressure on the Goths forcing them to migrate but as far as I know, no Gothic peoples as yet allied with the Huns were in the battle at Adrianople or had taken part in earlier excursions elsewhere. Does someone have any sources that say otherwise?

Thom Simmons, Kapiti Coast, NZ Malangthon July 11, 2005

Plagiarism?

This is essentially the exact same article that appears at www.roman-emperors.org/valens.htm. Is the author of this article the same person or, if he or she is not, is that a source from which one can freely copy?

Asphyxiated

What, did he leave his chariot running in the garage? Would strangled be a better word choice?

Valens is the subject of the article

This article reads like the history of Rome. To me, much of the material should be in another article. The focus should be Valens. Thanks for considering this.

Fair use rationale for Image:Shapur ii bust.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

"Adrianople was the most significant event in Valens' career"

Haha I'm sure this sentence shouldn't be here but it made me laugh anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.249.137 (talk) 23:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to start a section of with that title and a "Are we sure about this?" comment then I saw someone beat me to it. Seriously, can't it be put in better words? Or else I'm gonna come back and add a citation needed tag to it. Volunteer Marek  08:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Cavalry?

Really, some of the comments about the battle of Adrianople are inconsistent with most recent research. Cavalry was important, sure, but it was an infantry battle, and didn't mean the eclipse of infantry. 72.66.37.62 (talk) 01:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

This article has many problems

This article has many problems. Some have been pointed out above. The episode with Procopius and Jovian is too detailed for an article on Valens (besides being very confusing). The information that 200'000 Gothic warriors and 1'000'000 Goths had reached the shores of the Danube is pure fantasy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.5.187.42 (talk) 14:40, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

'Ostrogoth' is anachronistic term in Valens' time

The term 'Ostrogoth' should be replaced by 'Greuthungi'. The former term is more properly applied to only the later Italian Gothic kingdom. Traditionally the Greuthungi have been incorrectly interpreted as the linear ancestors of the Ostrogoths; a confusion introduced by Jordanes and not attested in Ammianus. See 'Roman's Gothic Wars: Tervingi, Greuthungi and Other Goths', page 111, Michael Kulikowski — Preceding unsigned comment added by RMcPhillip (talk • contribs) 16:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Valens"

The early versions of this page included a Latin pronunciation for Valens ({IPAc-en|ˈ|v|eɪ|l|ən|z}) but that was removed and replaced (on 16:02, 14 August 2020) with the Greek pronunciation "{lang-grc-gre|Οὐάλης}" which (not being a speaker of Greek) I would try to say as "waylenz".

Now I understand that Valens was the emperor of the eastern portion of the Roman Empire where Greek was the predominant language. And yet it was all still one empire and there would have been many native speakers of Latin. Wouldn't they have pronounced his name "valens"?

Shouldn't both pronunciations be provided?

I also assume that by the late 4th century 'v' was pronounced as 'v' and not as 'w' as per the classical period.

RMcPhillip (talk) 21:02, 9 November 2023 (UTC)