The novel Quo Vadis tells of a love that develops between a young Christian woman, Lygia and Marcus Vinicius, a Roman patrician. It takes place in the city of Rome under the rule of emperor Nero, circa AD 64. The author gives us pictures of the conflict of moral ideas within the Roman Empire,-a conflict from which Christianity issued as the leading force in history. Published in 1895, the novel has since been translated into more than 50 languages which contributed to Sienkiewicz's Nobel Prize for literature in 1905.