Here is the glorious and sinister life of Marius: patrician by birth, scholar by choice and one of the oldest vampires of them all. From his genesis in ancient Rome, to his present day meeting with Thorne, a Nordic vampire of snow and ice, we follow the story of this aristocratic killer. His is a tale that spans the breadth of time. When the Visigoths sack his city, Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory of Rome, he is there, still searching for his lost love Pandora, he even entertains an obsession with Botticelli. So prevalent is Marius that it is he who gives the dark gift to the illustrious vampire Armand. Intertwined with the stories of Rice's magnificent Pantheon of the undead, haunted by Pandora and by his alter ego Mael and tracked by the ominous Talamasca, this account of Marius is the most wondrous and mind-blowing of them all.