Livia, a young and vulnerable patrician, is brought up in isolation and poverty by her madman father. At his death she is married off to Festus, a degenerate Roman Senator, who is to 'save' her from the whorish blood she inherited from her mother. Little does she know, the man her father thought would protect her, plans her degradation and death. But the innocent Livia is not without friends, even if they are only slaves belonging to her husband. There is Nexus, the Nubian head slave of her husband's household, Niobe, her handmaiden, and Allyn, the dangerous and unstable Celt who has spent his life meeting the sexual demands of his owners and now find himself tasked with the destruction of his new mistress. From Rome's villas of unimaginable wealth to the blood and desperation of the gladiatorial amphitheatre and the eruption of Vesuvius the slaves play a cat and mouse game with their devious master to keep Livia safe.