One morning in the year A.D. 62 the senator Caius Pomponius Afer was found murdered in his bed. The news came as a death sentence to the slaves of his household, for if one of them had killed him — and there was no one else in the house except his elderly stepmother — they would all be executed; that was the Roman law.

In a few minutes soldiers had arrived and were marching the slaves off to prison; only Hylas the secretary managed to hide. He might have got away if he had fled from Rome at once, but he couldn't abandon his mother and the rest of the slaves, and as he crouched in the dusty niche where he had taken refuge a fierce determination to save them all took possession of him. But how? He could do nothing without the help of a man of standing, and there was only one he could turn to — Camillus Rufus, the senator's son-in-law.

How Camillus and Hylas carried out their campaign to find the murderer of Caius Pomponius and rescue the slaves makes a thrilling and moving story, which also provides a remarkably vivid picture of Roman society under Nero.

From the dust jacket