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kilometres to the Visigothic laagers. It was a short march, but a gruelling one, over burned fields, under a scorching sun, with no streams in sight to refresh the heavily armoured troops.
    After a couple of hours the Roman horsemen andinfantry approached the Visigothic camp and its huddles of wagons, from which rose wild war cries and chants in praise of Gothic ancestors. The sweaty approach had caused the Romans to straggle, with one wing of the cavalry out in front and infantry behind blocking the way of the second. Slowly they pulled themselves into line, clattering their weapons and beating their shields to drown out the barbarians’ clamour.
    To Fritigern, still awaiting help, these were unnerving sights and sounds. Again, he played for time, sending a request for peace; again, Valens sent the envoys away as of too low a rank. Still no sign of the Ostrogothic cavalry. Time for another message from Fritigern, another peace proposal, raising the stakes, suggesting that if Valens would supply someone of high status he would himself come to negotiate. This time Valens agreed, and a suitable volunteer was on his way when a band of Roman outriders, hungry for glory, perhaps, made a quick lunge at the Visigothic flank. The volunteer diplomat beat a hasty retreat – just in time, for at that moment the Ostrogothic cavalry came galloping in along the valley. The Roman cavalry moved forward to confront this new menace.
    That was what Fritigern had been waiting for. His infantry burst from the wagons, firing arrows, throwing spears, until the two lines clashed and locked in a heaving scrum of shields, broken spears and swords, so tightly packed that soldiers could hardly lift their arms to strike – or, having done so, lower them again. Dust rose, covering the battle-ground in a choking, blinding fog. Outside the mêlée, there was no need for theVisigothic archers and spearmen to aim: any missile thrown or fired at random dropped through the dust unseen, and had to find a mark.
    Then came the heavy cavalry, with no opposing Roman cavalry to stop them, trampling the dying, their battleaxes splitting the helmets and breastplates of infantrymen weakened by heat, weighed down with armour and slipping on the blood-soaked ground. Within the hour, the living began to stumble away from the Roman lines over the corpses of the slain. ‘Some fell without knowing who struck them,’ writes Ammianus. ‘Some were crushed by sheer weight of numbers, some were killed by their own comrades.’
    As the sun set, the noise of battle died away into the silent, moonless night. Two-thirds of the Romans – perhaps 10,000 men – lay dead, jumbled with corpses of horses. Now the dark fields filled with other sounds, as the cries, sobs and groans of the wounded followed the survivors across the burnt-out crops and along the road back to Adrianople.
    No-one knows what happened to Valens. At some time during the battle he had been lost or abandoned by his bodyguard and found his way to the army’s most disciplined and experienced legions, holding out in a last stand. A general rode off to call in some reserves, only to find they had fled. After that, nothing. Some said the emperor died when struck by an arrow soon after night fell. Or perhaps he found refuge in a sturdy farmhouse nearby, which was surrounded and burned to the ground, along with all those inside – except one man who escaped from a window to tell what hadhappened. Thus the story came to Ammianus. There was no way of proving it, for the emperor’s body was never found.
    The violence continued, and the empire had no answer to it. The Visigoths knew from deserters and prisoners what was hidden in Adrianople. At dawn they advanced beyond the battlefield, hot on the heels of the survivors seeking refuge. But there was no safety to be had; for the defenders, scrabbling to prepare for a siege they never expected, fearful of weakening their defences, refused to open the gates to their