Master and God

Afflicted By Classic Paranoia, The Self-styled Master And God Sees Enemies Everywhere. As He Vents His Suspicions, No One Is Safe. A Reluctant Hero, Gaius Vinius Clodianus Is Hand-picked For High Rank In The Praetorian Guard A Brave Man Striving For Decency In A World Of Corruption And Deceit. Flavia Lucilla, Tending The Privileged Women At Court, Hears The Intimate Secrets Of A Ruler Who Plays With The Lives Of His Subjects As If He Were Indeed A Careless God. In The Dark Shadow Of Domitian's Reign, Clodianus And Lucilla Play Out Their Own Complex Tale Of Resilience, Friendship And Love. Unwilling Witnesses To Domitian's Descent Into Insanity, These Ordinary People Must Choose Between Their Sworn Duty To Protect The Emperor And An Act Of Courage That Will Change The Future Of Rome. Set in the reign of the Emperor Domitian in first-century Rome, Master and God is Lindsey Davis's meticulously researched epic novel of the life and times surrounding the last of the Flavian dynasty of emperors. Gaius Vinius is a reluctant Praetorian Guard - the Emperor's personal guard - and a man with a disastrous marriage history. Flavia Lucilla is also in the imperial court and she is responsible not only for having created the ridiculous hairstyle worn by the imperial ladies but for also making toupees for the balding and increasingly paranoid emperor. The two of them are brought together in an unlikely manner - a devastating fire in Rome - which then leads to a lifelong friendship. Together they watch Domitian's once talented rule unravel into madness and cruelty, until the people closest to him conspire to delete him from history. As an imperial bodyguard, Vinius then faces a tough decision The epic story of a despot whose contemporaries wrote him out of history