The Tyrant's Tomb

Written by Rick Riordan, The Tyrant’s Tomb (2019) is a young-adult fantasy novel and the fourth installment in the five-part The Trials of Apollo series. The story follows the god Apollo, who has been banished to earth as the mortal teenager Lester Papadopoulos and is bound to obey the commands of the young Meg McCaffrey, the daughter of Demeter. In this installment, the two travel to Camp Jupiter, the Roman demigod training ground, in order to honor their fallen friend, Jason Grace. However, they soon realize that they must help defend the camp from an impending attack by two Roman emperors and an undead king. 

Rick Riordan is a #1 New York Times best-selling author who is widely known for writing mythology-based series for young readers, the most famous of which is Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The Tyrant’s Tomb explores themes such as Atonement and the Quest for Redemption, The Complexities of Sacrifice, and The Burden of Leadership and Duty.

This guide is based on the 2019 Disney Hyperion edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, illness or death, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Jupiter has cast his son, the god Apollo, out of Olympus and condemned him to live as a mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. In this incarnation, Apollo is also bound to obey the orders of the demigod Meg McCaffrey, the daughter of Demeter, as he undertakes a series of dangerous trials. Now, having survived a tumultuous adventure that claimed the life of their comrade, Jason Grace, Apollo and Meg arrive in Oakland, California, with the goal of transporting Jason’s body to Camp Jupiter (an encampment of Roman demigods) for burial. 

As they drive a hearse toward the camp, they are attacked by a eurynomos, a flesh-eating ghoul whose claws can deliver a poison that transforms its victims into the undead. Following Meg’s command, Apollo swerves off the highway, sending the car plummeting into space. Meg uses her plant-controlling powers to cushion their fall, and they are rescued by Lavinia Asimov, a young Roman legionnaire from Camp Jupiter. With the hearse destroyed, they carry the coffin toward a secret entrance to the camp. In the tunnel, two more ghouls attack, and Apollo sustains a poisoned wound across his stomach. They are joined by Centurion Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto, who kills the ghouls and realizes that an undead king is possessing them before she collapses the tunnel to prevent pursuit.

Upon arriving at Camp Jupiter, the group is met by the praetors, Frank Zhang and Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano. Apollo sings a song detailing his recent trials and Jason’s heroic sacrifice. His performance deeply moves the legionnaires, who are still grieving their own recent battle losses. Apollo then collapses from his poisoned wound. While unconscious, he has prophetic dreams of the emperors Caligula and Commodus sailing to attack the camp in five days, on the night of the “blood moon” (52). They are allied with an undead king (later revealed to be Tarquin), whom Apollo briefly sees in a tomb. When he awakens to find his wound dressed but still deeply painful, Frank informs him that Ella the harpy and Tyson the Cyclops, who are reconstructing the lost Sibylline Books, have a new lead based on a prophecy that Apollo previously brought to them.

Frank takes Apollo to New Rome. They visit a bookstore, where Ella is tattooing the Sibylline Books onto Tyson’s back. Ella provides a prophecy fragment about the tomb of Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin, the last king of Rome. 

Later, during Jason’s funeral, the wolf goddess Lupa appears and tells Apollo that he must explore Tarquin’s tomb in order to find a way to summon godly help. At the subsequent senate meeting, Lavinia deciphers the prophecy and realizes that the tomb is located under the nearby Tilden Park carousel. The senate approves a quest and assigns Apollo, Meg, Hazel, and Lavinia to investigate.

The four enter the tomb beneath the carousel, evade several undead guards, and overhear Tarquin talking to a subordinate and discussing his alliance with emperors Caligula and Commodus. He also speaks of his plan to attack New Rome by rising up from the sewers, and he mentions guarding a “silent one” (161) at “Sutro” (161). Meg attacks Tarquin, forcing a fight. Tarquin magically exacerbates Apollo’s infected wound and reveals that he can control Apollo through the ghoul poison. Hazel collapses the ceiling on Tarquin, allowing the group to escape. Lavinia creates a diversion so the others can return to camp.

After having another prophetic dream that reveals the emperors’ new Greek fire mortars, Apollo learns that he needs god-level healing in order to survive the ghoul poison. The praetors present a new prophecy detailing a ritual to summon a single god; the ritual requires the “last breath of the god who speaks not” (181). Apollo deduces that this “soundless god” (181) is the source of the magical communication blackout and has been imprisoned by Tarquin at Sutro Tower. 

Reyna, Meg, and Apollo climb Sutro Tower, fending off an attack by a flock of giant ravens that Apollo created out of spite in ancient times. Now, he drives them away by singing “Volare” terribly. They find the soundless god, Harpocrates, imprisoned in a large shipping container; his power is being amplified by the emperors’ ceremonial fasces. The imprisoned god holds a glass jar containing the last wisp of the Cumaean Sibyl’s voice. (The narrative previously revealed that millennia ago, the divine Apollo cursed the Sibyl to unnaturally long life without corresponding youth, punishing her for refusing his amorous advances.) Now, these two unlikely prisoners—the prophetic Sibyl and the silent god—have fallen in love. After Apollo shows remorse for his past cruelty to them both, Harpocrates and the Sibyl agree to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the god-summoning ritual. Harpocrates places his last breath into the jar and turns to dust.

With the ingredients for the ritual secured, the group escapes the returning ravens, but when more ghouls attack their vehicle, their truck crashes, and Reyna’s leg is broken. Lavinia and her troop of nature spirits rescue them, and Lavinia reveals that she will now lead a mission to sabotage the emperors’ approaching fleet. 

Apollo and Meg race back to Camp Jupiter, which is already buckling under a two-front attack; the emperors’ army is at the Caldecott Tunnel, and Tarquin’s undead forces are emerging from the sewers. Apollo performs the summoning ritual, dropping the jar containing Harpocrates’s last breath into a ritual fire so that he can call upon the aid of his sister, Diana. With no immediate divine response, he rushes to Caldecott Tunnel to aid Frank Zhang in challenging Caligula and Commodus to single combat. Frank tells Apollo that unbeknownst to the emperors, the tunnel is rigged with Greek fire. As the two fight the invading emperors, Frank sacrifices himself by igniting a piece of firewood supernaturally tied to his own life-force. The explosives detonate, incinerating both Frank and Caligula. A grief-stricken Apollo destroys the weakened Commodus by unleashing a devastating roar of pure sound. The fleet obeys Commodus’s last command to launch the Greek fire, but the deadly missiles inexplicably rise straight up into the air and fall back upon the yachts, destroying them.

Diana (the Roman incarnation of the Greek goddess Artemis, and Apollo’s sister), finally arrives in response to Apollo’s summoning ritual. She permanently destroys Tarquin with a silver arrow and heals Apollo’s poisoned wound. Miraculously, Frank Zhang returns alive, his life no longer tied to the firewood. 

In the following days, the camp mourns its dead. Reyna resigns as praetor and joins the Hunters of Artemis. The legion elects Hazel as the new praetor, then promotes Lavinia to centurion. The legion also gives Apollo his original godly bow and presents Meg with a pouch of rare seeds. On the morning of their departure to begin their next quest, Apollo and Meg visit Ella and Tyson and receive the first stanza of the final prophecy detailing Apollo’s trials. It points them toward New York, where they must face the last emperor, Nero, and then head to Delphi to defeat Apollo’s ultimate nemesis, Python.