"In his extensive series featuring the detecting feats of Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, set in the Rome of 80 B.C., John Maddox Roberts achieves a very believable modern feeling with his well-researched description of the stories' background. This seventh episode, however, combines a familiar view of the demands office-seeking makes on a candidate with a situation that is impossibly bizarre to us today. An entire city, versed in literature, music, and the other arts, democratically ruled for its time, is thrown into panic by an enraged man's curse. The Consul Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, is frustrated by the Senate's vote against his leading Rome in a war against Parthia, and he plans to march his private army to invade the country himself. Almost all of Rome turns out to watch him carry out his threat and lead his troops out of the city. But before he can, a powerful tribune called Ateius Capito leaps to the top of the city's gate and invokes all the gods to put a curse on Crassus and his army. Rome is terrified. Ateius Capito has called down a forbidden curse - the worst and most frightening blasphemy ever perpetrated. It seriously threatens the entire populace, and drastic steps to propitiate the gods must be taken immediately. Worse, even - someone kills Ateius Capito, perhaps in the vain hope that this will lighten the curse. It will not. After joining the other men of the city in a daylong punishing cleansing ritual, Decius discovers that he has been enlisted to uncover the person responsible for the murder. The culprit must be found in order to complete the cleansing, and there is no one better equipped to do that than Decius."--Jacket.
