El día de los bárbaros

August 9, 378. On the plains northwest of the city of Adrianople, in the Roman province of Thrace -now Turkey- a decisive battle for the Roman Empire took place. The legions of the Emperor Valens faced the Gothic hordes that had broken through the easternmost border of the empire and suffered the most severe defeat since Hannibal's victory at Cannae six hundred years before. The empire still survived a century after the bloody battle of Adrianople, but that day marked a turning point: it was the beginning of its end. Alessandro Barbero offers the reader a passionate and detailed account of this legendary battle and captures the changing world in which it took place. The result is the prodigious recreation of a defeat that marked the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.