Atia and her family have stayed behind when Pompey and others fled and she now throws a party for her triumphant uncle, Julius Caesar. She clearly has her sights set on the great leader and is puzzled when he sends her a guest list that includes Servilia of the Junii. She soon finds out why. Pompey wants to find out what happened to the gold from the Roman Treasury and sends his son Quintus to Rome to find out what happened. They go directly to Vorenus' home but he has no idea what they are talking about. Pullo arrives however and Vorenus tells him to go directly to Caesar himself and explain. Octavian meanwhile learns of one of his uncle's secrets.

The defeated Cato and Scipio fall back on the African city of Utica after the Battle of Thapsus where they decide to end it all. Caesar, after two years of fighting in Greece and Egypt, returns to Rome and receives a hero's welcome. Meanwhile, Servilia's cold rage against the Julii clan makes Brutus's submission to Caesar even more painful. Octavian returns home from military school and Caesar, impressed with his nephew's incisive political acumen, appoints him a pontiff despite his youth. Having opened and operated a profitable butcher shop, Niobe and Lyde get the reluctant Vorenus and Pullo to join the trade, but Vorenus again crosses paths with the thug Erastes, now the crime lord of the Aventine. Learning of Caesar's secret "affliction," Servilia persuades her lover Octavia to cajole her brother into revealing more, but she only learns Niobe's secret instead. Servilia motivates Octavia to try again by other means, with dreadful consequences for both sister and brother. Pullo's affection for his slave Eirene deepens. Enraged at Servilia's manipulation of her children, Atia enlists Timon and his band of thugs to retaliate, thus escalating the term 'catfight' to a very different level.

Octavian takes a new bride, Livia, and then introduces her to his family in a startling way... by having her witness the punishment he metes out to Atia and Octavia, for secretly defying the social constraints established through the facade of Octavia's "marriage" to Mark Antony. The vengeful Gaia carries out her plan to poison Eirene, which produces most dire consequences for Pullo, and no one else is the wiser. Meanwhile, Octavian, Antony, Maecenas, and their associates barely maintain their relationships of congenial contempt and hypocrisy, as everyone tries to figure out who has duped whom with the disappearance of the gold that was Herod's 'gift.' Now forced by Octavian to leave Rome to serve as an 'ambassador' to Egypt, Antony defies the conditions of Atia's house arrest to bid her a bittersweet farewell. The same can be said of Agrippa, who learns some startling news as he severs his relationship with Octavia. Timon also decides to move with his family to Judia to start a new life over for themselves. With the theft of the gold, Lucius and Pullo suspect and accuse a badly-wounded Mascius of having engineered a double-cross, but the real traitor of Vorenus' gang comes to shocking light which is the eldest Vorena. Now having pinpointed Memmio as the real culprit, Pullo takes the group to meet for a parlay with the devious captain and his cohorts, resulting in swift and bloody retribution for the traitors. A despondent Vorenus, his family fractured once again, begs Antony to allow him to come to Egypt, and finds his offer grudgingly accepted. Antony returns to Egypt and is reunited with the seductive Cleopatra.