Aurelian uses his cavalry to great effect,…
September 270 CE
Aurelian uses his cavalry to great effect, breaking the Goths into smaller groups, which are easier to deal with.
The Goths are defeated by late summer: any survivors are stripped of their animals and booty and are levied into the army or settled as farmers in frontier regions.
Aurelian has no time to relish his victories; in late August news arrives from Sirmium that emperor Claudius is dead.
His troops hail him as emperor at his return; he claims that Claudius had intended him to be his successor, which can be taken as propaganda.
One of the major defects of the empire is now clear: the lack of a legitimate principle of succession and the preponderant role of the army in politics.