A beautiful aristocrat's lakeside ball; a faceless corpse found floating in the Tiber; a ghost from Rome's legendary past haunting her streets... For the poet Catullus, newly arrived in Rome, these strange and seemingly random events are the foretaste of a danger more mysterious still. As he is drawn into the world of Rome's hidden pleasures, as past and future coalesce, so he finds himself trapped by the intrigues of a corrupt and collapsing State. The more Catullus tries to escape the taint of the plots enveloping him, the more they come to touch all he holds dear: poetry, friendship - even love. And yet it is through his passion for Lesbia, the enigmatic Lady Clodia, that Catullus is led at last to a resolution of the mysteries that have pursued him since his arrival - and to an understanding of the darkness at the heart of Rome's history. This witty and gripping novel, at once love story, thriller and political parable, confirms Tom Holland as one of the most innovative and brilliant of our new young writers, one whose voice will become synonymous with the literature of our time.