¡Cartago debe ser destruida!

150 BC. The western Mediterranean is almost entirely under Roman control. Only one independent stronghold remains: the arch-enemy city of Carthage. With Hannibal defeated in the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian metropolis has risen from the ashes in the last fifty years, and its economic prosperity arouses all sorts of suspicions in the Roman Senate. The elites of Carthage itself are divided between those who favor a lasting peace with the Romans and those who clamor for revenge for the ongoing grievances of their Numidian neighbors, allies of Rome and major beneficiaries of Carthage's decline. In this hornet's nest, figures such as King Masinissa of Numidia, the Carthaginian leader Hasdrubal the Boeotarch, the influential senator Cato, and the tribune Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus and his inseparable friend and mentor Polybius will emerge—all representing the many facets of an inevitable confrontation that will change history. As war becomes inevitable, military leaders, politicians, and ordinary citizens must choose between survival, loyalty, or betrayal and sacrifice for a doomed homeland. Will Carthage retain its dignity and its memory?