Two hundred years before Julius Caesar, the privileged patrician men ruled Rome from the senate, the women from the bedroom. But sheltered sixteen-year-old Thalia is infatuated only with the new and dazzling world of the Roman theater. While her senator father connives to auction her off to a husband like a marble statue, he doesn't know she's just met Lido, a beautiful and rebellious young actor who happens to be a slave. When their two worlds collide, Patrician Rome may never be the same.