Chloe came to Rome as a young girl and is now one of the city's leading courtesans. She is able to choose and refuse clients by dint of her careful investments and a refusal to take on clients worth less than 10,000 denarii. When she meets an Aethiop slave, sent to woo her as the emissary of his master, she throws restraint to the winds and surrenders to the passion he engenders in her.