In the early second century, Trajan ruled the Roman Empire. His sexual preference—in Julian's Caesars, Silenus quips that Zeus had better keep an eye on Ganymede while Trajan is around—influenced not only Hadrian, his first cousin once removed, but notoriously, Vibius Maximus, his appointee to the prefecture of Egypt. Alexandrian Knights tells the story of how the Roman governor's lust for a noble youth in Alexandria sparks sizzling carnal relations between the young man and two agemates: a male dancer and a former pageboy, who he serendipitously meets.