"My Name Is Aribaal" E. A. Isola Byblos app. 850 BC When Aribaal's life is spared from being sacrificed by the priest Theon in the fire pit of Baal, he learns that life as he knew it is over. His experience convinces him of the futility and ugliness of human sacrifice, especially of children. He flees to Egypt and as Na-Amen becomes captain of Pharaoh's diminished army. After defeating Libyan invaders he is honored by Pharaoh. While aware that he handles his weapons well and has developed an almost uncanny sense of how to conduct a war and lead men of war, he now believes that some unknown power saved him and led him into wisdom beyond his years. He is convinced he must follow this power or deity so clearly able to influence him. Later, he joins his sister, Queen Dido of Carthage. He learns that Theon has inserted himself as the leader of Carthage's religious life and has introduced human sacrifice there. Sickened by this turn of events he once again is in a quandary of what to do. He decides to wait and watch. Aribaal joins his sister Dido in her battles against local tribes who wish to destroy her. There, he also encounters Aeneas, who survived Troy's fateful destruction. Aribaal unwittingly becomes embroiled in Dido's tragedy as her attraction to Aeneas leads toward her destruction. Content that Dido's fate in is good hands, he leaves Carthage for the new world of Etruria. When tragedy hits his young family, he chooses to attempt a crossing of the unexplored ocean, which no one has never successfully done, in the hope of discovering a land where he can be truly free.