Robert Silverberg's superbly accomplished and ambitious work explores over fifteen hundred years of alternative Roman history through the very human stories of those who lived it: the young soldier encountering the exoticism of the New World for the first time; the minor official exiled to Arabia for some misdemeanour, whose meeting with religious fanatic may have changed the course of history; and the innocent British aristocrat witnessing at firsthand the bloody destruction of the royal family are all memorably brought to life. For the Roman Empire never fell.