This is a novelization of a film intended to be a blockbuster. The film failed, and the book is not much of an effort to be better. The story concentrates on the transfer of pwer after the death of Marcus Aurelius to the incompetent hands of commodus. The intent was to outline the overwhelming failure of the empire to remain undamaged in the face of incompetence at the top. It really skates over that weakness in favoour of a very pallid love affair. ( )