Augustus dies in 14 AD, leaving Tiberius an uneasy heir: the Senate distrusts his temperament, and he distrusts the Senate back. Tiberius withdraws to the island of Capri and hands power to his prefect Sejanus, who launches a purge of rivals, arresting and executing his way toward the throne, until Tiberius abruptly turns on him and has him arrested and executed instead. Caligula inherits the empire next, starts well, then descends into paranoia and cruelty until his own guard murders him. His uncle Claudius follows, a man mocked for a childhood illness who turns out to govern competently, expanding protections for slaves and women and conquering Britain, before his wife Messalina's affair ends in her execution and his own unbothered request for more wine. Beyond Rome, Philo travels from Egypt to plead for persecuted Jews and gets nowhere, and in Judaea a preacher named Jesus draws the fury of the religious establishment, a local disturbance the film treats as a quiet fuse for what comes later.