The recently divorced father of a nine-year-old, furious his daughter can't spend her birthday with him, bursts into her classroom with a birthday cake and a rifle. A hostage crisis ensues, and the mayor of the town in which the events take place will try to use the situation to gain advantage ahead of the elections, stopping at nothing. The son of a young policeman is in the same class, and before the events unfold, he'll have to answer a question as well.

Through both personal and political conflicts, the film tells the story of emperor Diocletian's rise to power and his complicated place in ancient Rome's court politics.