By the middle of fourth century AD, Britain and the Roman Empire had been ruled for a generation by Christian emperors. Now, at last, with the force of the state behind it, the Church was strong enough to suppress all opposition to its power. But in Britain there was still resistance...Seen through the eyes of Drusus, a young British Roman, and set against the backdrop of imperial civil war and the growing threat from Rome's enemies beyond its frontiers, the followers of faith and reason clash and the old values of classical enlightenment are called into question. And it is Drusus who is there to witness the cracks as they begin to split the great monumental edifice of the Roman Empire...

Paul Waters is a well-travelled classicist, and though educated in Britain, he has lived much of his life abroad -- in Africa, America, Greece among other places. He now writes full time. His acclaimed first novel, Of Merchants & Heroes, was published in 2008.