Three weeks after the disaster of Cannae (216BCE), a small company of Roman soldiers is dispatched by ship to Eryx in north west Sicily to bring back the goddesses Mens and Venus Erycina to Rome. This was in accordance with the advice obtained after consulting the Sybelline Books, that the Republic needs their divine aid if it is to survive.. On the return journey, their ship encounters a small Punic fleet and Scipio, the leader of the company, orders that the Hesperus be beached on the rocky coast. They manage to elude possible pursuit from the enemy by fleeing south, rather than north towards Elea, their nearest refuge. The following day, by making a wide sweep to the west and then turning north, they manage to get within striking distance of Elea. The company rescues a group of Roman actors led by their player-manager, Plautus, when the players are being attacked by Numidian horsemen. Scipio allows the players to join his company though he means to leave them at Elea if and when they can reach that town. But both Elea and Paestum, the town forty miles to the north of Elea, are wavering in their alliance with the Republic and if the company fails in its mission to bring the goddesses to Rome, the city may fall.