When he refuses, she decides to go on her own, in a serious breach of protocol. Julia, feeling claustrophobic in Claudius’s Capua villa, longs for the excitement of Rome and begs Marcus to take her to the ludus. To Julia, Claudius is too old, too intellectual, and too boring. The marriage is a disaster from the beginning. However, the marriage takes place, and Julia takes Hadassah with her to begin her new life. He knows he could order her to his bed, but she is somehow different from the other servants in the house, and he refrains from sexual coercion.īelieving it high time his daughter is wed, Decimus arranges a marriage between Julia and the older, wealthy Claudius, an arrangement Julia, forever battling for independence from the strict gender roles of Roman society, fights tooth and nail. He watches her pray in the garden and questions her about her faith. Marcus is also intrigued by the quiet magnetism of Hadassah. His father is concerned about his children’s sole pursuit of pleasure and money. In the Valerian household, the headstrong Marcus battles with his father over his business ventures. One day, shortly before Atretes is transferred, Julia notices him training near Capua and is smitten by the warrior’s physical power and beauty. One morning during training, Atretes spars with his sadistic trainer, Tharacus, and kills him, a feat which earns him a transfer to a ludus in Rome under the tutelage of Bato, an Ethiopian trainer who is smarter and less cruel than Tharacus. Despite savage beatings for numerous escape attempts, Atretes is unbowed and swears revenge against his captors. Because of his almost superhuman fighting ability, he is sold to a ludus, a school for gladiator training, destined for a life of blood sport for the entertainment of the Roman mob. In one ambush, he too is captured and sold into enslavement. Meanwhile, Atretes, a tribal warrior living in the forests of Germania-territory claimed by Rome-leads a ragtag group of clans on raids against the occupying Roman legions. The spoiled and petulant Julia claims Hadassah as her personal servant, and Hadassah begins her service to the Valerian household, living under the constant threat of punishment and death. Hadassah, a Christian living in Judea during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, is captured, marched to Rome, and enslaved to a wealthy Roman family, the Valerians: Decimus, Phoebe, and their adult children, Marcus and Julia.
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