Father Ramphion: seemingly a paragon of Christian virtue, but those who learn the truth about him usually do not survive to tell the tale Julia: a Seeress, Aulus' long-lost beloved, who might have died to save him, and on whom he might have begotten a son he never knew The Guardians: six highly intelligent insects, bearing energy weapons and constituting a mortal threat to humanity Major themes The book to some extent explores the themes of social order, the client-patron relationship, gender roles, and time travel, but for the most part is a tale of action and adventure rather than a vehicle for philosophical musings. The story takes place in the midst of the Roman Empire's Third Century Crisis. The Empire is in a very bad shape: Emperors replace each other rapidly, usually by civil war or coup d'état; the current Emperor, Gallienus, has effective power only in Italy and parts of North Africa; to the west, the rival Emperor Postumus rules Gaul, while to the east Palmyra has become an effectively independent power and encroaches on Imperial territory; the urban population bursts out into frequent riots; the Imperial borders are broken, with Germanic Barbarians raiding overland and into the waters of the Mediterranean. Throughout the book, the protagonist Aulus Perennius is acting under the assumption that the Empire is irrevocably doomed—and still, he is doggedly and completely devoted to this doomed Empire, even when having seen much of its seamy side. In this he is similar to Poul Anderson' Dominic Flandry (who serves a space empire consciously modeled on the Roman Empire). Those who know the basics of Roman history are aware that in fact, this is far from the Empire's end—two decades hence, Diocletian will consolidate, launch the Dominate period and give the Empire another two centuries of life (and much longer to its eastern portion). However, the book provides a bit of secret history: The Roman Empire was indeed on the verge of collapse, about to fall already in the Third Century; it was Calvus, the traveler from the far future, who gave the Empire another lease on life. It was she who used her mental abilities to provide the young Diocletian with the qualities needed to fulfill his crucial role in history. In fact, the future Emperor had been present in the book's plot all along, though under a different name, and on the very first