Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) becomes the inadvertent possessor of a scroll bearing all the names of the proposed assassins of Nero (Patrick Cargill). The conspirators need to recover the scroll fast, but it has fallen into the hands of Lurcio's master, Ludicrus Sextus (Michael Hordern) who mistakenly reads the contents of the scroll to the Senate. Farcical attempts are made to retrieve the scroll before Pompeii is eventually consumed by the erupting Vesuvius.