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Marcus Dentelegus sat, stiff-backed on an uncomfortable stool.

He was now 52 years old and could barely remember the vitality of his prime years

when he had smashed Greek pikemen, Samnite warriors, and Gaulish mercenaries with sword and shield.

His left knee ached constantly.

It had twisted painfully during a fall from a horse in Sicily as he was trying to ride down a running Carthaginian.

Something had snapped at his right shoulder during the heat of a melee on the pitching deck of a warship.

The legacy of dozens of smaller war wounds scarred his flesh from his ankles to his forehead.

Ambition had once burned so brightly in him.

Ambition to make a name for himself, to conquer Rome's enemies, to win election to the

praetorship, or even the consulship, and secure his family's fortune for decades to come.

High office had eluded Marcus, and he figured it was too late now, but he had won his victories,

bloodied his blade, and won respect from

blue-blooded patricians and the humblest plebeian footsloggers alike. That was enough. It had to be

enough, though the pangs of that past fire still sometimes rose up to burn him. Now, looking out

at the fields of wheat and vines covering the grounds of his estate from a villa built

in the latest popular style, Marcus could say that he had done well for himself. He could hear the

work gangs, most of them men enslaved during the war, calling out to each other as they weeded

and tended the grapes. He couldn't understand the gulls or the Carthaginians, though he could make

sense of the Greeks. The things had gone differently,

he reflected, and might have been him on an estate outside of Carthage, laboring among other

...