The novel plays with the existing, still unsolved, historical mysteries surrounding the reasons behind the banishment of the Antiquity's great Latin poet, Ovid, to Tomis, a Greek colony by the Black Sea, as well as the circumstances of his death there and the location of his tomb. Far more than a simple fiction based on the last years of Ovid's life in Tomis, the novel weaves an intricate tapestry of the Roman Empire in the first two decades of the 1st century AD. Readers will walk through the very real, rigorously documented and vividly brought to life slums of extravagant and sophisticated Rome, and are treated to street performances, life and death back alley fights, brothel incursions, gladiatorial arenas, terrifying close-up battle accounts, the smells and tastes of the underbelly of Rome, the ancient everyday brought to life in high definition colour and sound.