Ancient Roman

Disgraced and demoted, a Roman tribune is exiled to a restless frontier town on the slopes of Etna, where a volcanic eruption, a mutiny of soldiers, and a secret of the volcano god's temple pull him toward one last impossible campaign.

In second-century Rome, a freedwoman who keeps the grain ledgers of a senatorial house discovers that the city's dole is being silently short-weighted, and must weigh the patron who freed her against the crowds the fraud is starving.