E. Pyle

In the first century B.C. at the height of the Roman Republic, two men set their sights on becoming the First Man - the Roman more respected than any other. Marius, a heroic man of strength and means, lacks the noble blood to contend for the First Man, but overcomes his common status when he marries into the patrician house of Caesar. Sulla, a pleasure-seeking aristocrat without money of his own, is transformed by his ambitions into a fierce and daring warrior. Together the two men will shape history as they are thrust into a raging storm....

Auchincloss' tale of a New York family dynasty opens with the suicide of Geraldine Brevoort, a woman whose pride and envy fed her alcoholism and kept her alone, and leads the listener through an odyssey of love, marriage, and adultery.