Lucius was thrilled when he learned of his father's plan to send him to the Legion to become a Centurion. When his father then engaged Pertinax, a former gladiator, to serve as Lucius' sword-fighting tutor, he could hardly believe his luck. On a business trip to Massilia (Marseille), Lucius gets lost in the harbor district, where a gang of street urchins assails him, beating and robbing him. Gnaeus, Lucius' father, is in such a fury over his son's weakness and public humiliation that he ba...