The story begins on the first day of June (the Kalends of Junius), 63 bc.

Embossed upon the shield Aeneas saw The stony halls of the netherworld, the domain of the damned And the punishments they suffer. There Catilina clings to the edge of a sheer Precipice, cringing in terror while the Furies beat their wings about him…

Virgil, The Aeneid, v: 666-669

How haue we chang'd, and come about

in euery doome, Since wicked CATILINE went out,

And quitted Rome? One while, we thought him innocent;

And, then accus'd The Consul for his malice spent;

And power abus'd. Since, that we heare, he is in armes,

We thinke not so: Yet charge the Consul, with our harmes,

That let him goe. So, in our censure of the state,

We still do wander; And make the carefull magistrate

The marke of slander.

ben jonson, Catiline his Conspiracy, act iv: 863–878

What is truth?

pontius pilatus

The

CLAUDIAN ESTATES

in Etruria, together with maps of Rome & Northern Italy at the time of Cicero's Consulship, 63 B.C.

Part One Nemo

'According to Cato…' I said, and paused, squinting at the scroll. Bright summer sunlight from the 'window glared across the parchment, obscuring the faded black letters. Then again, at forty-seven, my eyes are not what they used to be. I can count the leaves on an olive tree fifty feet away, but the difference between O and 17, or even land L, is not as clear as it once was.