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On July 1 1251,The Battle of Abrittus is won by the Goths against the Romans. Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus were killed. From the article:

"The Roman defeat at Abritus (251 CE)
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Recently I've read an interesting article by Polish archaeologist Aleksander Bursche: The Battle of Abritus, the imperial Treasury and Aurei in Barbaricum, published in 2013 in The Numismatic Chronicle, the bulletin of the The Royal Numismtic Society. I'll quote the abstract of the article here:

I find his thesis (which he develops further in the full article, of course) quite interesting, and helps to put the Roman débacle at Abritus in a new perspective.
Well, the article does not say that Decius lost in Abritus all the gold hoarded by Rome since the times of the First Punic War :D, merely that he probably lost what amounted to a sizeable chunk (or even the larger part) of the gold reserves of the Roman state at Abritus.

I find it an interesting possibility indeed.
I believe they spent quite some to pay of enemies, especially in the later Easter Empire. And of course they did what all European civilizations do, send gold to East Asia to acquire the luxuries not available at home.
In his article, Bursche notes that gold coins (aurei) of Decius and his immediate predecessors Philip the Arab and Gordian III are surprisingly abundant in the areas of the Cherniakhovsky and Wielbark cultures that are often associated with the Gothic peoples of the III century CE. While these coins are very scarce in other Germanic areas nearer to the border of the empire, in recent times findings have multiplicated in this land area which today falls within the borders of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine.

Of course, it's quite logical to suspect that the famous campaign of the Goths and their allies led by Cniva in the Balkans in 250-251 CE must be the main reason for this fact. And Bursche goes a step further and postulates that these gold coins came not only from looting and rescues of Roman captives, but also from the defeat of the Roman army at Abritus; otherwise it would be difficult to explain the sheer amount of findings and most importantly, the circumstances they were found in many cases.

While taking the entire imperial treasure (or at least the gold reserves) with him on an uncertain military campaign may seem a very foolish thing to do (and in hindsight it most certainly was), Decius had good reasons to do so as Bursche says. First of all, the very fact of the political instability of the Roman empire at the time. Leaving so much money in Rome while he was far away in campaign was risky, as it would offer possibilities to any usurper that rose in the capital. Taking the money with him removed that risk. Once the decision was taken, it was logical to dispose of that amount in gold for two reasons:
Due to its higher value per weight unit, gold is much more mobile than silver, a key feature when Decius was about to start a highly mobile campaign in the Balkans.
Donativa to the troops were usually made in aurei. Donativa were extraordinary payments given to the soldiers (the regular salary of soldiers, the stipendium, was paid in silver antoniniani, a highly devaluated coin) and officers in certain circumstances: for the proclamation of an emperor, for each subsequent dies imperii, for the marriage of the emperor, for the birth of an heir, as a reward for a victory ... or simply to bribe the troops in the case of a rebellion or to calm mutinous or rebellious troops. We know that in the III century soldiers had become dangerously used to such extraordinary cash payments and expected them for almost every unusual circumstance. Given the status of Decius as an usurper (as many other emperors of the time), it's to be expected that the availability of gold for such payments was key for his survival.
Many of the gold coins found in Barbaricum were found in small hoards of around 5 coins; that's exactly the usual size of a standard donativum, which makes very likely that these small hoards were taken directly by the victorius Gothic warriors from fallen Roman soldiers. And most coins appear also deliberately cut and broken, in some cases buried deliberately in sacred spaces after having been thus damaged, which makes highly likely that it was some kind of ritual behaviour. Bursche points out that practices of defacing or destroying the booty taken from defeated enemies and then bury it in acred spaces (or throw it in bogs) were in fact common in Germanic societies, and is attested by archaeology in other areas of Germanic settlement.

What's interesting is that if this thesis is correct, then it sheds new light upon Decius' débacle at Abritus: it was even worse than previously thought, as the Romans lost not only a whole army (Bursche speculates that it maybe had three whole legions, vexillations of other forces, auxiliary units, the Praetorian Guard and other imperial guards units) and two Augusti (Traianus Decius and his elder son Herennius Etruscus) but also the imperial treasury (or at least a very large part of it). That must've been not only disastrous for the finances of the Roman state (and may help explain the dire predicament of Roman armies in the following reigns of Trebonianus Gallus, Valerian and Gallienus, when defeats became increasingly common and the empire became very close to disintegration), but as the news of such fabulous booty spread across the Barbaricum, it must've acted as a magnet for barbarian groups, who would've all sought to emulate the success of Cniva's Goths."