PRAETOR

The praetor is the moral centre of the series: Rome's highest judicial authority in the story, idealistic enough to believe justice can be principled and experienced enough to learn how costly that belief becomes.

Around him: the quaestor who does the legwork, a veteran centurion of the urban cohort, a morally grey informer, a street-level officer of the vigiles, his wife Julia, and Cicero, the hero whose approval he craves and whose compromises he will have to confront.