After his young lover, Gitone, leaves him for another man, Encolpio decides to kill himself, but a sudden earthquake destroys his home before he has a chance to do so. Now wandering around Rome in the time of Nero, Encolpio encounters one bizarre and surreal scene after another. He is invited to a poetry reading that ends in violence, taken hostage by a group of pirates, and even forced to battle a gladiator disguised as a minotaur in a giant labyrinth.