72 BC. The uprising of Spartacus swept the south of Italy, threatening the inhabitants of Rome. The manager of a huge villa was killed. The mysterious client urgently calls detective Gordian. All evidence points to two slaves who are believed to have fled to Spartacus. The owner of the villa is Marcus Crassus, the richest man in Rome. Crassus decides to apply the ancient Roman law: if a slave kills his master, all the slaves of this house must die. And then three days later, on the day of the funeral, ninety-nine slaves will be killed in the arena. Crassus appealed to the Senate with a request to entrust him with military command in the war with Spartacus. Now, by sentencing the remaining slaves to the heaviest possible punishment, he turns a political failure into a political coup. The solution to the murder is much more complicated than it seems at first glance. Gordian's search for truth leads him along an incredible path - from a hellish descent to slave-oarsmen on a Roman galley to a visit to the soothsayer Sibyl and a terrible gladiator fight. As the hour approaches for the murder of the slaves, Gordian discovers more and more numerous but contradictory evidence. Moving towards the solution, Gordian realizes that the truth may entail his own death.