There are a handful of well-known engagements taking place at night in late antiquity. At the Battle of Adrianople (AD 378), fighting between the Gothic and Roman forces continued into the night, resulting in chaos and many hundreds, if not thousands, of extra bodies littering the plain. The arrival of darkness meant that very few soldiers on either side knew who they were striking at, and in turn, caused panic and unrelenting combat. Conducting forays or merely moving outside of your designated encampment on the eve of battle could also be disastrous. At the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in AD 451, there were several instances of confusion due to the arrival of nightfall. In the prelude to the main battle, a skirmish broke out between Roman/Gothic forces and the Huns due to them merely stumbling into one another. Jordanes, a sixth-century author writing on Gothic history, notes that Thorismund, son of King Theodoric of the Visigoths, accidentally walked into Attila’s encampment while attempting to return to his own forces that night.
During the same night, the Flavius Aetius also became lost and was separated from his Roman troops, resulting in him spending the night with his Visigothic allies. These are examples of military mishaps or engagements happening at night; however, they are not examples of a planned night assault on an enemy. These types of operations were different
