The great novel by Gisbert Haefs, the outstanding storyteller of the ancient world. The end of the Roman Republic is imminent. In the midst of the bloody turmoil, the warrior Quintus Aurelius is forced by Cicero and other politicians to spy on Gaius Julius Caesar. How can this power-obsessed man be stopped - or should it not be attempted at all? In his successful novels, Gisbert Haefs knows how to bring the ancient world to life in a fascinating way.
In the winter of 53/52 B.C., the end of the Roman Republic begins. While the Senate aristocracy is increasingly distancing itself from the people, gang fights and political murders determine the daily life of Rome. In Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar becomes richer and thus more powerful with every foray - too powerful in the eyes of the Senate. Cicero and other Roman politicians force the former warrior Quintus Aurelius by unclean means to hire himself out as Caesar's field cook and spy on him for the Senate. Time and again, in Rome, Gaul and Egypt, he meets the ravishing Calypso, an educated and cunning hetaera, with whom he soon falls in bittersweet love. And as the Roman power struggles approach their climax, Calypso and Aurelius ask themselves more and more: what are Caesar's goals really? And no matter what they may be, wouldn't anything else be better than a prolongation of the rotten republic's bloody death throes?