Hope to get home has never felt so real as it does now. After crossing mountains and reaching a great river, Latium truly begins to believe he will be saved—and that he will see Rome. His path runs through India, where he once again has to face greed and envy from the people living there. One of them turns out to be the traitor Andromachus, with whom fate brought him together in an Indian trading city. The road home is not as short as it seems. Latium has to become a warrior, take command, and fight side by side with new comrades; use cunning; and, in the end, escape from the very patrons who were once his benefactors. Not far from the borders of a Roman province of Asia, he meets friends he had long believed dead, and now he burns with a desire greater than ever to help his city and people. Yet many of Rome’s citizens don’t respond to his naive impulses. In his hometown, Latium faces new difficulties—far more complex than wars, betrayal, and envy. One of these mysterious problems is a strange sign on his shoulder, whose meaning has bothered him his entire life.