The Education of Gaius

Young Roman aristocrat, Gaius Manlius Torquatus is enjoying life as a poet and socialite with some of the most brilliant and sophisticated men and women of the Late Roman Republic.

An unusually gentle man in that violent age, steeped in philosophy, poetry and Hellenic culture, Gaius is tormented by the suspicion that beneath his civilised veneer there lurks a monster of cruelty and depravity, haunted by fantasies of inflicting pain. Can Gaius' lover, the worldly-wise and cynical Tiberius Fadius Gallus, convince the young man not only that his desires are not proof of a cruel and vicious character, but that there are men out there who would love to be his victim?