Publisher's Synopsis
The Roman army may have won the Third Punic War and given Rome control of the Mediterranean, but for Sempronius Viatores that's not enough. Making a living in post-war Rome is getting tougher and tougher. Semper, as he's known, doesn't want to be carpenter like his short-tempered father. He wants to buy a farm. Land is the secret of financial security. His father won't hear of it. Semper has to overcome his father's angry stubbornness, the fallout from his own infatuation with a fickle young woman, and a physical handicap that has defined his life. Politics seems to be an answer and Semper joins the ranks of the charismatic Tiberius Gracchus who raises a plebeian challenge to the power of the patricians and the Senate. However, tying his fate to the fortunes of Tiberius endangers both Semper and his family. The middle of the second century BCE was a turbulent time and a turning point in the history of the Roman Republic.