Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken.

By the sacred springs in the forest near her home, Lavinia, young princess of Latium, encounters a poet - a soothsayer - who foretells her future: to marry a Trojan hero named Aeneas and found a great kingdom and a mighty dynasty.

Lavinia's mother has other plans - to marry her daughter off to an ambitious neighbouring king - and her father is plagued with indecision. But when a fleet of foreign warships sails into the mouth of the river Tiber, Lavinia knows her destiny is calling...