Publisher's blurb: You have been dispatched by your relative Cleopatra to gather news about what is going on today in the city. Cleopatra is residing in a villa across the Tiber from central Rome, and while her staff is free to come and go, Cleopatra prefers to remain in the villa and await Caesar’s infrequent visits. Like your relative you are skilled at languages so you can converse with the locals in their barbarian tongue. You are familiar with the local language but Rome seems a filthy and bewildering city to you, not up to the standards of Alexandria, the most civilized city in the known world. You are accompanied by an Egyptian bodyguard. You have heard that even the distinguished orator Cicero calls the city of Rome ― the cesspool of Romulus.