9 A.D. Jesus Christ was already born, but few have heard of him yet... The Roman Empire stretched from Britain to the Black Sea. Germany, a freshly baked province, serves as the scene of a clash of civilization and barbarism. Germanic tribes, mired in mutual enmity, are forced to sort out their relationship not by force of arms, but in Roman courts. At the hands of unknown killers, the legate of the Seventeenth Legion Lucius Demetrius Celeste, the elder brother of the young Roman patrician Guy, dies.