It is 426 A.D. Ten years have passed since Rome fell to the barbarians. On his estate Geminius in Proconsular Africa, Marcus waits for the arrival of the invading Vandals. They will tear apart the province of Africa as the Goths have torn apart Rome. In the first book of The Owl of Minerva Quartet, Marcus, now retired, and writing his memoirs at Geminius, recalls his childhood and coming of age. He examines his relationship with his three brothers: the dark and pessimistic Atellus, Tertullus whose perverse desires end in his destruction, and the youngest of the three, Lucius. Marcus describes his friendship with the brilliant poet and playwright Lepidus, and the passionate relationship of Lepidus with his muse, the actress Rhodocleia. Marcus, meanwhile, has his own affair with an older woman, whose mysterious identity he discovers only after he has left her. Marcus remains a pagan and a Stoic in a world that is rapidly becoming Christianized. He idealizes Rome and its Empire, and at the end of "Geminius" leaves his studies in Carthage to become a civil servant in Rome. There he will find himself at the centre of the turbulent events that mark Rome's decline.