The novel by a modern English writer is dedicated to the ancient Roman poet Virgil, who happened to live during the critical era of the fall of the Republic and the birth of the Empire. Through the eyes of the great poet, the reader sees the events of those distant years - the civil war, the murder of Caesar, the death of Brutus and Cassius, the transformation of the unknown fragile and sickly young man Octavian into the powerful ruler of the entire Roman world, Augustus.