Parts: 4
Writer: Dennis Spooner
Airdates: 16 January 1965 - 6 February 1965
Production Code: M

Episode Titles: The Slave Traders; All Roads Lead to Rome; Conspiracy; Inferno

Doctor: first
Companions: Ian, Barbara, Vicki

Story: After the TARDIS tumbles off a cliff outside ancient Rome, the Doctor and his companions decide it is time for a break. Leaving the ship where it lies, they head to an empty Roman villa to while away some time in luxury, with relaxation aplenty. Unfortunately for the TARDIS crew, a good thing can only last so long, and Barbara and Vicki draw attention of an undesirable kind when they go shopping. Two slave-traders watch them as they go about their task, and later bribe one of the vendors to reveal where they live.

Blissfully innocent of all this, the Doctor decides to visit the city of Rome itself. Vicki desperately wishes to join him, so the Doctor relents and allows her to come along. A while after they have departed, Ian and Barbara are lounging around when the villa is beseiged by the slave-traders. Meanwhile, the Doctor comes across the body of a murdered man. As he examines the man's lyre, a centurion approaches and assumes that the Doctor is the well-known lyre-player Maximus Pettulian, who is supposed to entertain Emperor Nero. The centurion takes them on his journey back to Rome.

Ian is sold as a galley slave to a ship in Rome, and is forced to row the oars under cruel conditions. Barbara finds herself purchased as a slave in Nero's palace, where she becomes the focus of the Emperor's barely-restrained lust. And the Doctor is targetted by a Roman assassin who thought he had already killed the man he was hired to dispatch...