October A.D. 440: Roman surgeon Getorius Asterius and wife Arcadia arrive at Constantinople with their slave, Brisios, and guide Herakles. Caught in a bread riot, they board a galley of ill patients sailing to the Asklepion, a pagan healing center at Pergamum. There physician Apollonios, an enemy of a woman Christian minister, Epiphania, has been accused of burning her church. Presumed dead, she is hiding in an abandoned Egyptian temple and planning...