Athanaric made his first appearance in recorded history in 369, when he engaged in battle with the Roman emperor Valens and ultimately negotiated a favorable peace for his people.

Temporarily fleeing to Caucaland in the Carpathians, Athanaric was received by Theodosius I in Constantinople in 381, where he signed a treaty of friendship with the Roman Empire.

[5] In 376, Valens permitted Fritigern's people to cross the Danube and settle on Roman soil to avoid the Huns, who had recently conquered the Greuthungi and were now pressing the Thervingi then living in Dacia.

[6] Orosius (Historiae adversum paganos 7, 34) and Zosimus (New History 4, 34, 3-5) affirm this, but another source, Ammianus Marcellinus (Res gestae 27, 5, 10) tells us an entirely different story.

A peace and a treaty with the Thervingi (or Visigoths), who still fought the Romans in Thrace, was concluded in 382 and it lasted until the death of Theodosius of Constantinople, in 395.