A heart-stopping love story about a Jewish slave girl and Rome's greatest gladiator, who become involved in a plot to assassinate the Emperor of Rome... First-century Rome: a world of depravity and secrets where the Emperor Domitian watches over all. In the blood-soaked Colosseum, a gladiator known as the Barbarian reigns supreme. The Barbarian longs for the freedom that only death will bring. Yet the gods conspire to keep him alive... Thea, a slave girl from Judaea, has known only brutality at the hands of her Roman mistress. A chance encounter promises the hope of love, but Thea is destined to be sold again, and owned by one more powerful and evil than she could have ever imagined... Meanwhile, in the shadows of the Senate, the jackals are circling. Many would plot to take the feared Domitian's life. But as the lives of the Emperor, the Barbarian and the slave girl collide, Domitian's fate will lie solely in the hands of one woman, destined to become known as Mistress of Rome...