ROME IS a city older than the Catholic Church. Everything that could happen has happened there, and no doubt will happen again. This is a book set in a fictional time, peopled with fictional characters, and no reference is intended to any living person whether in the Church or out of it.
I cannot ask my friends to accept the responsibility for my opinions. So those who have helped me with this book must remain anonymous.
To those who gave me their stories, to those who placed their leaning at my disposal, to those who spent upon me the charity of the faith I offer my heartfelt thanks.
Thanks are due also to Penguin Books Ltd for permission to reprint three extracts from the Philip Vellacott translations of Euripides (Alcestis, Iphigenia in Tauris, Hippolytus).
Also to Reverend Father Pedro A. Gonzales OP for a passage from his thesis on Miguel de Unamuno, which is incorporated without quotes in the body of the text.
M. L. W.