ROME, 462 BC. To save his family’s failing farm, sixteen-year-old Marcus Atilius is sold into debt servitude by his own father. Plunged into the city’s underbelly, Marcus must endure a world of cutthroat trading stalls and gritty warehouses, all while navigating a forbidden entanglement with a woman far above his station. Survival demands sharp guile and moral compromise. As a bitter class struggle pushes Rome toward the brink of civil war, Marcus vows to beat the elites at their own ruthless game to win his freedom and a fortune worthy of the woman he loves. Yet his rise brings a fateful choice. A historic demand sweeps the city for the Twelve Tables-a revolutionary legal code to protect plebeians from patrician tyranny. With a corrupt aristocrat holding the tether to his trading empire, will Marcus protect his hard-won power, or risk everything for the soul of Rome?
