Ashes Book II

It is ancient, late-Republican Rome, and P. Silvius Priscus Niger, the most gentle of slave-owners, hires slave-catchers Aries and Syriaticus to return to him his beloved escaped Carthaginian slaves, Endymion (Carthaginian name, Melqart), Adonis (Carthaginian name, Aqbar), and Narcissus (Carthaginian name, Adonibaal). The chase leads from the Carthaginian quarter of Surrentum to the luxuries of Pompeii, south, down the Roman road, the Via Popilia, to the Valley of Diana, to mountainous Bruttium, to the wheat fields and olive groves of Sicilia, to volcanic Mt. Aetna, in the course of which, the slave-catchers ignite a war between Roman legionary settlers and native Lucanian farmers, are outwitted by back-country outlaws, attacked by mobs of angry slaves, and nearly clubbed to death by an angry gladiator. But Aries and Syriaticus are relentless. They anticipate a rich reward.