A time machine sends Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales back to Rome in 65 A.D., where they are captured for lion fodder as entertainment for Emperor Nero. Speedy feeds hot chili peppers to a lion, causing the big cat to shoot like a skyrocket. He and Daffy are chased by guards and fall atop Nero, breaking the Emperor's fiddle. Nero angrily pursues Daffy and Speedy as the scientist who invented the time machine sets it in reverse and returns Daffy and Speedy to the present, accompanied by Nero. Nero becomes a fiddler in Speedy's musical band.