A historical novel based on the life of Julia Domna, one of the most relevant, passionate and overlooked people in Rome's history. Julia Domna (170-217) was born in Syria, and as a foreigner to Rome she captivated the city with her intelligence and beauty. In her struggles to protect her family and her husband (the governor Septimius Severus, whose astuteness saw him become Emperor), she had to negotiate times of upheaval, dominated by political and economic instability, a succession of emperors – five in barely five years, including the cruel and unpredictable Commodus – and the menace of civil war that threatened to shake the very foundations of the Roman Empire.