Great events make great leaders. Or I wonder if it’s the other way around. You be the judge while I tell you the story of my friend, Baecr, scourge of Rome, rebel and traitor. Or so historians have misdescribed him, knowing little of a man I knew better than they. Like Homer’s Odysseus, years of suffering Baecr endured, yet wondrous feats he then achieved against a multitude of odds! Much of what follows I witnessed firsthand, some parts he relayed to me, while the rest is from those who knew him before I called him friend.

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Where to begin his tale has long troubled my ageing mind. The innumerable doors of possible entrance might be better kept locked, lest the living baulk to see what lies beneath. Even now, I fear conjuring memories of a world within a world, where darkness battles with the light. But as my end approaches, I have decided to make peace with history. And since these musings must start in some place, why not on that sultry day long ago. There at the Tarpeian Rock, where Baecr resolved to kill himself, and no mortal hand would stop him.