Caesar is marching on Rome: his intent, civil war. Pompey and the terrified Senate prepare to flee the city. The murder of a visitor to the house of Gordianus the Finder could not occur at a worse time - especially since the dead man is Pompey's favourite cousin and may have been a very dangerous spy. Pompey commands Gordianus to find the killer, threatening terrible penalties for failure. Amid the chaos overtaking Rome, through the worsening conflict, torn himself by conflicting loyalties, Gordianus must pursue the trail on a deadly journey into the thick of war - although what he finds will shake his sense of right and wrong to the core. Steven Saylor recreates a world without certainties, an empire destroyed by intrigue and internecine war, where murder and espionage pollute the ways of power and the towering figures of history are also the engineers of the empire's destruction.