June 251 · Moesia (modern Bulgaria) Theater
June 251
The emperor Decius and his son led a Roman army against a great Gothic invasion of the Balkans. Lured into marshy ground at Abritus, the Roman army was ambushed and annihilated; Decius's son was killed by an arrow, and the emperor himself perished in the bog — the first Roman emperor ever to be killed in battle against a foreign enemy.
Commanders