THE IDES OF MARCH
March in the year 44 BC. Gaius Julius Caesar, Pontifex Maximus, dictator in perpetuity, indomitable military leader who has subjected much of the known world to Roman law, is fifty-six years old. He is at the height of his power; his reign is supreme and his reach immense. Or so it appears. In truth, Caesar is exhausted and ill, trapped in the prison of his own nightmares. His divine missions - to end the bloody season of fratricidal wars, to reconcile warring factions, to singlehandedly save Roman civilization - may be too great for one man. The tide is turning against Caesar and there are those who conspire against him. They accuse him of being a tyrant. They say that when he dissolved the alliance with Pompey the Great at the river Rubicon, he put an end to liberty within the Republic. Caesar has resisted the attempts of his betrayers to bring him down, still he cannot resist forever. His power is being drained and it seems that nothing can save him, not Publius Sextius - his most loyal centurion and comrade, who is racing toward Rome in an attempt to prevent his assassination - or his devoted wife, Calphurnia; not even the attentions of his lover Servilla.