Ancient Rome, 130 years after Christ but still two centuries before Christians achieve state recognition. Caesar Hadrian is the ruler of a vast Empire at the height of its wealth & power. One of "the five good emperors", Hadrian dominates a culture ruled by pagan values, inequities, & ambiguous sexualities.

From a cruel war's victory Triumph through Rome's Forum, to a drunken revel at Athens' Acropolis; from the stirring excitement of a board hunt in the forests of Bithynia, to the steam rooms of a grand Roman bath-house; from the opulent bordellos of Alexandria, to the privacy of an emperor's bed chamber, Hadrian's search for love destroys the very person he most adores.