Battle of Naissus The Battle of Naissus ( 268 or 269 AD ) was the defeat of a Gothic coalition by the Roman Empire under Emperor Gallienus ( or Claudius II ) near Naissus ( Niš in present - day Serbia ) . The events around the invasion and the battle are an important part of the history of the Crisis of the Third Century . The result was a great Roman victory which , combined with the effective pursuit of the invaders in the aftermath of the battle and the energetic efforts of the Emperor Aurelian , largely removed the threat from Germanic tribes in the Balkan frontier for the following decades . Sources . As is often the case in the history of the Roman Empire in the troubled 3rd century , it is very difficult to reconstruct the course of events around the battle of Naissus . Surviving accounts of the period , including Zosimus ' " New History " , Zonaras ' " Epitome of the Histories " , George Syncellus ' " Selection of Chronography " , and the " Augustan History " , rely principally on the lost history of the Athenian Dexippus . The text of Dexippus has survived only indirectly , through quotations in the fourth - century " Augustan History " and extracts in ninth - century Byzantine compilations . Despite his importance for the period , Dexippus has been declared a " poor " source by the modern historian David S . Potter . To make matters worse , the works making use of Dexippus ( and likely another unknown contemporary source ) provide an almost radically different interpretation of events . The imperial propaganda in the age of Constantine ' s dynasty added more confusion by attributing all the calamities to the reign of Gallienus to avoid blemishing the memory of Claudius ( supposed ancestor of the dynasty ) . As a consequence , controversy still exists on the number of invasions and the order of events and on which reign those events must be attributed . Therefore , there is a dispute over who was the Emperor and head of the army at the time of the battle . In 1939 , Andreas Alföldi , preferring the single invasion theory , suggested that Gallienus was the only one responsible for defeating the barbarian invasions , including the victory at Naissus . His view had been broadly accepted since then , but modern scholarship usually attributes the final victory to Claudius II . The single invasion theory has been also rejected in favour of the two separate invasions . The narrative below follows the latter view but the reader must be warned that the evidence is too confused for an entirely safe reconstruction . Background . The battle of Naissus came about as a result of two massive invasions of " Scythian " tribes ( as our sources anachronistically call them ) into Roman territory between 267 and 269 . The first wave came during the reign of Gallienus in 267 and started when the Heruli , raiding on 500 ships , ravaged the southern Black Sea coast and unsuccessfully attacked Byzantium and Cyzicus . They were defeated by the Roman navy but managed to escape into the Aegean Sea , where they ravaged the islands of Lemnos and Scyros and sacked several cities of the southern Greece province of Achaea , including Athens , Corinth , Argos , and Sparta . Then an Athenian militia , led by the historian Dexippus , pushed the invaders to the north where they were intercepted by the Roman army under Gallienus . He won an important victory near the Nessos ( Nestos ) river , on the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace , with the aid of the Dalmatian cavalry . Reported barbarian casualties were 3 , 000 men . Subsequently , the Heruli leader Naulobatus came to terms with the Romans . In the past , the battle on the Nessos was identified as the Battle of Naissus , but modern scholarship has rejected this view . On the contrary , there is a theory that the victory at Nessos was so decisive that Claudius ' efforts against the Goths ( including the battle of Naissus ) were no more than a mopping - up operation . After his victory , Gallienus left Marcianus in place and hastily left for Italy , intending to suppress the revolt of his cavalry officer Aureolus . After Gallienus was assassinated outside Milan in the summer of 268 in a plot led by high officers in his army , Claudius was proclaimed emperor and headed to Rome to establish his rule . Claudius ' immediate concerns were with the Alamanni , who had invaded Raetia and Italy . After he defeated them in the Battle of Lake Benacus , he was finally able to take care of the invasions in the Balkan provinces . In the meantime , the second and larger sea - borne invasion had started . An enormous coalition of " Scythians " — actually consisting of Goths ( Greuthungi and Tervingi ) , Gepids and Peucini , led again by the Heruli — assembled at the mouth of river Tyras ( Dniester ) . The " Augustan History " and Zosimus claim a total number of 2 , 000 – 6 , 000 ships and 325 , 000 men . This is probably a gross exaggeration but remains indicative of the scale of the invasion . After failing to storm some towns on the coasts of the western Black Sea and the Danube ( Tomi , Marcianopolis ) , the invaders attacked Byzantium and Chrysopolis . Part of their fleet was wrecked , either because of Gothic inexperience in sailing through the violent currents of the Propontis or because it was defeated by the Roman navy . They then entered the Aegean Sea and a detachment ravaged the Aegean islands as far as Crete and Rhodes . While their main force had constructed siege works and was close to taking the cities of Thessalonica and Cassandreia , it retreated to the Balkan interior at the news that the emperor was advancing . On their way , they plundered Doberus ( Paionia ? ) and Pelagonia . The battle . The Goths were engaged near Naissus by a Roman army advancing from the north . The battle most likely took place in 269 , and was fiercely contested . Large numbers on both sides were killed but , at the critical point , the Romans tricked the Goths into an ambush by pretended flight . Some 50 , 000 Goths were allegedly killed or taken captive . It seems that Aurelian , who was in charge of all Roman cavalry during reign of Claudius , led the decisive attack in the battle . Aftermath . A large number of Goths managed to escape towards Macedonia , initially defending themselves behind their laager . Soon , many of them and their pack animals , distressed as they were by the harassment of the Roman cavalry and the lack of provisions , died of hunger . The Roman army methodically pursued and surrounded the survivors at Mount Haemus where an epidemic affected the entrapped Goths . After a bloody but inconclusive battle , they escaped but were pursued again until they surrendered . Prisoners were admitted to the army or given land to cultivate and become coloni . The members of the pirate fleet , after the failed attacks on Crete and Rhodes , retreated and many of them suffered a similar end . However the plague also affected the pursuing Romans and emperor Claudius , who died from it in 270 . The psychological impact of this victory was so strong that Claudius became known to posterity as Claudius II " Gothicus " ( " conqueror of the Goths " ) . However devastating the defeat , the battle did not entirely break the military strength of the Gothic tribes . Besides , the troubles with Zenobia in the East and the breakaway Gallic Empire in the West were so urgent that the victory at Naissus could only serve as a temporary relief for the troubled Empire . In 271 , after Aurelian repelled another Gothic invasion , he abandoned the province of Dacia north of the Danube in order to rationalize the defense of the Empire . Rome would never reconquer Dacia .