A multi-voice retelling of historical events featuring the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki. The TARDIS crew members have taken a break from their adventures and are enjoying a well-deserved rest in a luxury villa. But, in the gory grandeur that is Imperial Rome, things don't stay quiet for long. If the time travelers can save themselves from being sold as slaves, assassinated by classical hit-men, poisoned by the evil Locusta, thrown to the lions, maimed in the arena and drowned in a shipwreck, they still have to face the diabolical might of the mad Emperor Nero. As if that wasn't enough, they also discover that, although Rome wasn't built in a day, it burnt down in considerably less time... Donald Cotton's epistolary novelization of his 1965 TV serial is a shining example of the wit and drama of Doctor Who.