Add Galla Placida to the annals of the dominant, lustful women rulers of empires Cleopatra, Elizabeth the I, and Catherine the Great. These three have been historically exposed but are presented at their mature state when they have achieved notoriety. Their formative years have been all but neglected as irrelevant. In this novel, Galla Placidia is taken from birth to her fate as regent empress for her son Valentinian the third. We see her from innocence through maturity where her beauty and Roman potency drew suitors of position and means - but love and romance superceded all and threw her into the arms of a barbarian.