The Tenth Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. They later discover a local merchant has sold the TARDIS to sculptor Lobus Caecilius. The Doctor and Donna go to Caecilius' house to retrieve it. Unknown to them, they have been followed by a soothsayer who reports to the Sibylline Sisterhood that the prophesied man in the blue box has arrived, and the Sisters fear the prediction that his arrival brings fire and death. At the house, the Doctor and Donna meet the local augur, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, who has arrived to collect a sculpture he commissioned.
Plot
The Fires of Pompeii
The Fires of Pompeii | Plot
The Tenth Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. This episode depicts alien time traveler the Doctor and his new companion Donna Noble on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Their clashing worldviews present an ethical dilemma for the Doctor Set shortly before and during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, this episode depicts alien time traveller the Doctor and his new companion Donna Noble on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Their clashing worldviews present an ethical dilemma for the Doctor. It  depicts alien time traveller the Doctor and his new companion Donna Noble on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion
is karen gillan in the fires of pompeii
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Karen Gillan returned in the fifth series to play Amy Pond.
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what is the fires of pompeii?
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It is the second episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who".
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what is its storyline?
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The Doctor and Donna run for the TARDIS, leaving Caecilius and his family behind in their home. However, Donna tearfully begs the Doctor to go back and at least save one person from the volcano. The Doctor relents and goes back for Caecilius and his family, leaving them on a hill to watch the destruction. He comments to Donna that she was right — he does need someone to stop him. Six months later, Caecilius's family are living happily away from Pompeii. Caecilius's son, now training to be a physician, gives his thanks to the household gods by throwing blessed water on a relief on the wall, revealed to be an image of the Doctor and Donna, standing next to the TARDIS.
The Fires of Pompeii | Plot
The Doctor discovers that the Sisterhood are being controlled by the Pyroviles, stony creatures whose home planet of Pyrovilia was lost. The Doctor escapes with Donna into a tunnel that leads into the heart of Mount Vesuvius. The Doctor discovers that the volcano is being used by the Pyroviles to convert the human race and conquer Earth. The Doctor realises the volcano will not erupt if the energy converter is running, and tells Donna that the volcanic eruption is a fixed point in time and must always happen. The Doctor and Donna get into an escape pod and together press a lever which overloads the converter and triggers the eruption, killing the Pyroviles and launching the pod clear of the blast.
The Fires of Pompeii | Plot
At the end of Book I of the Cambridge Latin Course, Caecilius and Metella perish in Pompeii on the day of the eruption, but Quintus survives. This episode creates an alternate ending to their story, where they are all rescued by the Doctor and move to Rome. The line "You must excuse my friend, she's from Barcelona" was a reference to an apologetic catchphrase from "Fawlty Towers", attributed by the production team to Sybil Fawlty.
The Fires of Pompeii | Writing
The Doctor is intrigued by the sculpture, which resembles a segment of an oversized circuit board. The Doctor wishes to learn more about the sculptures and enlists Caecilius' son Quintus to help him break into Lucius Petrus' house. Inside, the Doctor deduces that the circuits will make an energy converter, but he is caught by Lucius Petrus, who beckons a large stone creature to attack and kill them. The stone creature appears in Caecilius' house and attacks them, but Quintus douses the creature in water and kills it. In the confusion, the Sisterhood kidnap Donna, and the Doctor sets off to rescue her.
The Fires of Pompeii | Plot
The Seventh Doctor and Mel visit ancient Pompeii just before the Vesuvius tragedy is due to occur.
The Fires of Vulcan | Plot
The production of the episode was impeded by a fire near the sets several weeks before filming and by problems for the production team crossing into Europe. Critics' opinions regarding the episode were generally mixed. The premise of the episode—the moral dilemma the Doctor faces, and Donna's insistence that he save a family from Pompeii—was widely praised. However, the episode's writing was criticised, in particular, for the characterisation of the supporting cast: The dialogue was described as "one-dimensional" and Peter Capaldi and Phil Davis's dialogue as "whimpering and scowling".
The Fires of Pompeii | Introduction
The Tenth Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. They later discover a local merchant has sold the TARDIS to sculptor Lobus Caecilius. The Doctor and Donna go to Caecilius' house to retrieve it. Unknown to them, they have been followed by a soothsayer who reports to the Sibylline Sisterhood that the prophesied man in the blue box has arrived, and the Sisters fear the prediction that his arrival brings fire and death. At the house, the Doctor and Donna meet the local augur, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, who has arrived to collect a sculpture he commissioned.
The Fires of Pompeii | Plot
Executive producer Russell T Davies originally planned to include a serial set in Pompeii in the first new series of "Doctor Who", after seeing the documentary "". That episode's position was given to "Boom Town" and the idea was shelved for three years. The episode was written by James Moran, who previously wrote the film "Severance" and the "Torchwood" episode "Sleeper"; Moran was requested to write the episode as a consequence of the latter. Moran had difficulty writing the episode, and had to rewrite the Doctor's opening line over twenty times. The Pyrovile were also edited during writing: they were previously called Pyrovillaxians and Pyrovellians.
The Fires of Pompeii | Writing
"The Fires of Pompeii" is the second episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who". It was broadcast on BBC One on 12 April 2008. Set shortly before and during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, this episode depicts alien time traveller the Doctor (David Tennant) and his new companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Their clashing worldviews present an ethical dilemma for the Doctor. The episode was filmed in Rome's Cinecittà studios, and was the first time the "Doctor Who" production team took its cast abroad for filming since its revival.
The Fires of Pompeii | Introduction
The Doctor identifies himself as "Spartacus", to which Donna replies "So am I." This is a reference to a scene in the film "Spartacus", where all the slaves shield Spartacus by each shouting "I'm Spartacus!" The Doctor also uses the phrase "Volcano Day", which he and Captain Jack Harkness both previously used in the Ninth Doctor episode "The Doctor Dances" (2005). The characters of Caecilius, his wife Metella and their son Quintus refer to a family featured in the Cambridge Latin Course textbooks, who in turn were based on a real citizen of Pompeii and his family.
The Fires of Pompeii | Cultural references
However, he said the moral dilemma the Doctor faced was "compelling" and the Doctor's use of the water pistol "adds a pleasing sense of fun to counterbalance the impending stench of death and harks nicely back to the Tom Baker era of the show." Overall, he appreciated the premise of the episode, but thought the episode "deserved better writing".
The Fires of Pompeii | Critical reception
However, as stated earlier, it is now believed that he actually perished in the 62 AD earthquake that preceded the eruption, since the records of his negotiated contracts cease shortly before then. Caecilius, along with his banking profession, also has a minor role in Robert Harris's 2003 novel "Pompeii". In a 2008 episode of television science-fiction series "Doctor Who" entitled "The Fires of Pompeii", Peter Capaldi portrays Lobus Caecilius, a marble merchant based on Caecilius. In this story, he and his family are saved from the eruption by the Doctor, who transports them to safety.
Lucius Caecilius Iucundus | Depictions in fiction
All Pompeii gathers in the amphitheatre for the bloody gladiatorial games. Just as Glaucus is led into the arena with the lion–who, distressed by awareness of the coming eruption, spares his life and returns to his cage—Sallust bursts into the arena and reveals Arbaces's plot. The crowd demands that Arbaces be thrown to the lion, but it is too late: Vesuvius begins to erupt. Ash and stone rain down, causing mass panic. Glaucus rescues Ione from the house of Arbaces, but in the chaotic streets they meet Arbaces, who tries to seize Ione but is killed by a lightning strike.
The Last Days of Pompeii | Plot summary
Some humans can enter the Doctor's memories after the Doctor enters theirs, as demonstrated by Madame de Pompadour (much to the Doctor's surprise) in "The Girl in the Fireplace", when she explains, "A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction." In "The Fires of Pompeii", the Doctor reveals that he is able to perceive the fabric of time, discerning "fixed points" and "points in flux" – moments when history must remain as it was originally versus moments when he can change or influence the original course of events, as well as all past, present and possible future events.
The Doctor (Doctor Who) | Physiology
Capaldi's Doctor addresses this in the episode "The Girl Who Died," when the Doctor finally remembers that he shares a face with a man he was persuaded to save in Pompeii, despite his initial reluctance to alter that timeline. He surmises that he subconsciously chose this face for his current regeneration as a reminder that his job is to save lives. Capaldi also played John Frobisher throughout "", the third series in the "Doctor Who" spin-off "Torchwood", although no similar connection has been made on-screen to this character. Tracey Childs and Phil Davis have also performed on "Doctor Who" audio productions for Big Finish.
The Fires of Pompeii | Cast notes
Glaucus and Apaecides rescue her from his grip, but Arbaces is struck down by an earthquake, a sign of Vesuvius' coming eruption. Glaucus and Ione exult in their love, much to Nydia's torment, while Apaecides finds a new religion in Christianity. Nydia unwittingly helps Julia, a rich young woman who has eyes for Glaucus, obtain a love potion from Arbaces to win Glaucus's love. But the love potion is really a poison that will turn Glaucus mad. Nydia steals the potion and administers it; Glaucus drinks only a small amount and begins raving wildly. Apaecides and Olinthus, an early Christian, determine to publicly reveal the deception of the cult of Isis.
The Last Days of Pompeii | Plot summary
Nydia leads Glaucus and Ione to safety on a ship in the Bay of Naples, as because of her blindness she used to going about in utter darkness while sighted people are made helpless in the cloud of volcanic dust. The next morning she commits suicide by quietly slipping into the sea; death is preferable to the agony of her unrequited love for Glaucus.
The Last Days of Pompeii | Plot summary
Nydia manages to escape and rushes to the Circus where she arrives just as the Vesuvius starts erupting.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1908 film) | Plot
He liked the joke about the TARDIS's translating the Doctor's and Donna's Latin phrases to Celtic, saying it was "subtly played throughout the episode [...] in a way that builds the joke without trampling it into the ground". His favourite part was Donna's attempts to divert the population of Pompeii away from the beach; the scene was "the emotional highpoint of a series of heart rending scenes". However, he criticised Moran's writing, specifically, Quintus's and Metella's dialogue, saying the former "remained pretty much one-dimensional throughout". Alan Stanley Blair of SyFy Portal also gave a positive review. He was highly appreciative of Tate, saying "[she] moved even further away from her "Runaway" character that initially joined the show." The phrase "TK Maxximus" and the Doctor's use of a water pistol to subdue the Pyrovile were complimented, as were the special effects used to animate the Pyrovile.
The Fires of Pompeii | Critical reception
Marcus a military officer goes to war and is injured and believed to be dead. In his hometown of Pompeii a bad earthquake happpens, and his girlfriend Valeria and her brother Ennius are orphaned. They are sold to Quintus Laronius as slaves, but Laronius is murdered. Marcus and Valeria do all they can to solve the mystery of the murder, with the evil governor Chelidone holding them back with hi's love for Valeria. They eventually get Tiberius a tribune to save Valeria, Ennius and the other slaves of Quintus Laronius, who are accused of his murder, but the volcano Vesuvius erupts sending ash and pyroclastic flows to Pompeii burying it, Marcus and Valeria, and their friends cause Chelidone to die in the eruption, but they survive.
Imperium: Pompeii | Plot
Nydia manages to escape and tells Glaucus' friend Claudius what happened. Claudius rushes to the Circus to accuse Arbax and the crowd decides that Arbax and not Glaucus should be thrown to the lions.
Jone or the Last Days of Pompeii | Plot
The 1954 film, "Journey to Italy," starring George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman, includes a scene at Pompeii in which they witness the excavation of a cast of a couple that perished in the eruption. Pompeii was the setting for the British comedy television series "Up Pompeii!" and the movie of the series. Pompeii also featured in the second episode of the fourth season of revived BBC science fiction series "Doctor Who", named "The Fires of Pompeii", which featured Caecilius as a character. In 1971, the rock band Pink Floyd filmed a live concert titled "", in which they performed six songs in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in the city.
Pompeii | In popular culture
Two of the cast members of "The Fires of Pompeii" were later cast in starring roles for "Doctor Who". Karen Gillan returned in the fifth series to play Amy Pond, full-time companion of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. Casting director Andy Pryor suggested her to new executive producer Steven Moffat based on her performance in this episode as one of the soothsayers. Peter Capaldi was cast as the Twelfth Doctor in 2013, and made his first appearance in the 2013 Christmas special "The Time of the Doctor" (with an uncredited cameo appearance in the anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor").
The Fires of Pompeii | Cast notes
Nydia manages to escape and tells Glaucus' friend Claudius what happened. Claudius rushes to the Circus to accuse Arbaces and the crowd decides that Arbaces and not Glaucus should be thrown to the lions.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1913 film) | Plot
The Doctor notices that the water in a dam near the fissure has become warm and acidic, suggesting that it has been heated. Returning to the Fissure they find Gaddis's corpse horribly burnt, which fascinates the Doctor. Nepath later holds an auction to fund his purchase, and demonstration a metal that returns to its original shape when destroyed, which Nepath gives the Doctor a sample of. The army gives Nepath a large amount of money for him to create self repairing guns for the army, which Nepath uses to buy more mining equipment. Later, the metal turns into molten lava, which causes the remains of TARDIS to grow to normal size, although it is still a featureless blue box.
The Burning (novel) | Plot
The Doctor and Vicki are en route for Rome when they find the murdered body of a lyre player named Maximus Pettulian. The Doctor is holding the man’s lyre when a centurion arrives and mistakes him for the dead man who is late for an engagement in Rome. The centurion accompanies them to Assisium. Once there, the centurion contacts the assassin Ascaris, who killed the real Pettulian, and instructs him to kill the Doctor. The Doctor overpowers the assassin and drives him away. The centurion has fled, and the Doctor concludes the soldier was in league with the assassin. He decides to maintain his alias as Pettulian and head to Rome.
The Romans (Doctor Who) | Plot
Medea's curse contains poisons, snake blood, herbs, and the invocations to all the underworld gods. The cursed robe catches fire when Creusa puts it on. Creon tries to extinguish the fire but is unsuccessful, and he catches on fire as well (817-843). Their death does not satisfy Medea but only awakens her vengeful spirit more. Jason's betrayal blinds Medea so much that she wishes to harm him even at the expense of her own children. Medea sacrifices her children from the roof of her house in order to hurt Jason (982-1025). Medea escapes in a dragon chariot while she throws the bodies of the boys down.
Medea (Seneca) | Plot
All he had to do to cure the wart was to seek the help of science.
Arimpara | Plot
This manner, according to Sikelianos, is fire that will burn everything (a popular motif in the work of Sikelianos in general, since he has used it in many other tragedies). The main episode of "Christ in Rome" with great length and key importance – and also the main theme of the plot is the scene of the fire that burns Rome. The re-creation of all things will come in the face the Jew Daisan, who will salvage an infant from the burning ruins of a building, a symbol of hope for the future: in other words and in direct correlation with the ancient myths and Greek tragedy, Daisan becomes the father-Zeus of the new Dionysus – hope for the future of the world.
Christ in Rome | Plot
He then reports to the Emperor, who wishes to destroy any evidence that his son, Domitian, was involved with the scheme. When a freedman bursts in to inform the Emperor that the Temple of Hercules Gaditanus is on fire, Anacrites is sent to the Transtiberina to find a freedman (Barnabas) who has been following Falco around, whilst Falco is sent to investigate the arson attack. There he discovers that Curtius Longinus, who had been summoned to Rome to account for his role in the plot, has been killed in the fire. He returns to the palace to be informed that Anacrites had been unable to locate Barnabas, the freedman immediately becoming suspect in the arson and death.
Shadows in Bronze | Plot summary
The former hero is now the hunted.
Fire Over Rome | Plot
Arbaces, recovered from his wounds, overhears and stabs Apaecides to death; he then pins the crime on Glaucus, who has stumbled onto the scene. Arbaces has himself declared the legal guardian of Ione, who is convinced that Arbaces is her brother's murderer, and imprisons her at his mansion. He also imprisons Nydia, who discovers that there is an eyewitness to the murder who can prove Glaucus's innocence—the priest Calenus, who is yet a third prisoner of Arbaces. She smuggles a letter to Glaucus's friend Sallust, begging him to rescue them. Glaucus is convicted of the murder of Apaecides, Olinthus of heresy, and their sentence is to be fed to wild cats in the amphitheatre.
The Last Days of Pompeii | Plot summary
With the outbreak of World War I, however, the enormous profits to be made from the sudden demand for shipping ends this plan. On a stop in Italy, Ulysses visits the ruins of Pompeii, and meets Freya Talberg (Alice Terry) and the learned Doctor Fedelmann. He soon falls in love with Freya (who looks exactly like his uncle's painting of Amphitrite). Though she later informs him that she is an Austrian spy (as is Fedelmann), Spain is neutral and his ardor is undiminished. He agrees to transport Count Kaledine to a secret rendezvous in the Mediterranean. The U-boat "U-35" surfaces, takes on fuel from Ulysses' ship, and departs with Kaledine.
Mare Nostrum (1926 film) | Plot
Barbara is already there and is sold to Tavius, who is highly placed in the court of the Emperor Nero. She is to be a handmaiden to Nero's second wife, the Empress Poppaea Sabina.
The Romans (Doctor Who) | Plot
With the TARDIS stuck at the bottom of a cliff, the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki have installed themselves in an unoccupied Roman villa. As the Doctor and Ian recline, Barbara and Vicki walk to a nearby Roman village. They are spotted by two slave traders, Didius and Sevcheria. When they return to the villa the Doctor announces that he is off to Rome, some miles away, and will travel there with Vicki. Later that evening Barbara and Ian, now alone, are relaxing when the two slavers burst in upon them. They are overpowered and taken prisoner. Ian is sold to one slave owner, while Barbara is to be traded with another and sent to Rome.
The Romans (Doctor Who) | Plot
The novel's historical backdrop is the North African/Italian Campaigns of World War II. The story is told out of sequence, moving back and forth between the severely burned "English" patient's memories from before his accident and current events at the bomb-damaged Villa San Girolamo (in Fiesole), an Italian monastery, where he is being cared for by Hana, a troubled young Canadian Army nurse. The English patient's only possession is a well-worn and heavily annotated copy of Herodotus's "The Histories" that has survived the fiery parachute drop. Hearing the book constantly being read aloud to him brings about detailed recollections of his desert explorations, yet he is unable to recall his own name.
The English Patient | Plot synopsis
Sallustio now takes this as a sign that a terrible injustice is about to be done and halts the execution. Pubblio, believing that his perfidy has brought disaster to Pompeii, confesses all and names Appio as the instigator of the plot. He and Appio are sealed in the tomb instead of Ottavia. As boulders and ash rain down on the city and all flee in panic, Menenio arrives with a chariot and rescues his parents. The eruption becomes ever stronger and the sky is filled with fire and lightning. The curtain falls on a scene of desolation.
L'ultimo giorno di Pompei | Act 2
Moran worked closely with Davies because of the constraints imposed by filming. Davies encouraged Moran to insert linguistic jokes similar to those in the comic book series "Asterix", such as "Lucius Petrus Dextrus" ("Lucius Stone Right Arm"), TK Maxximus, and Spartacus; the use of the phrase "I'm Spartacus!" refers to the 1960 film. Moran drew the name Caecilius from that of the main character in Book I of the Cambridge Latin Course, who is in turn based on the banker Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, and he based the ancillary characters of Metella (Tracey Childs) and Quintus on Caecilius's family in the same course; the character of Evelina was the only member of the family created by Moran.
The Fires of Pompeii | Writing
He stops slaving and turns to trading instead.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1935 film) | Plot
In 1990, Grant Hart told British magazine Select, "It starts out narrated by Pliny the Younger from Pompeii, OK? ... He pretty much gives the general synopsis. The story starts with the fall of Nazi Germany, and Wernher Von Braun doesn't wanna be captured. So he conjures up Wotan, the Nordic God of War, and asks him, like, How the hell do I get out of this mess?" Escaping back in time in a V2 rocket, von Braun meets Pliny the Elder who takes him to Pompeii. He ends up with King Pompedible (from the illustrated book, "The Knave of Hearts") trying to control his mind, just as Hitler had tried before.
The Last Days of Pompeii (album) | Plot
However, he disapproved of the use of Cockney colloquialisms in the episode, most notably the Stallholder (Phil Cornwell) saying "lovely jubbly". Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy gave the episode three stars out of five. His opening said "Fantastic effects and a well developed moral dilemma bolster 'The Fires Of Pompeii', although the episode fails to erupt." Rawson-Jones felt that Moran's script took "too long to actively engage the viewer and tap into the compelling premise of the time travellers arriving in the doomed city shortly before 'volcano day'." and that "the subplots are unsatisfyingly muddled for the majority of the narrative." He also complained about the characterisation of the supporting cast, saying that "Peter Capaldi and Phil Davis [deserved] better".
The Fires of Pompeii | Critical reception
His stepdaughter Peri Brown is bored with the dig and wants to go travelling in Morocco and when he seeks to prevent this she steals the strange artefact and tries to swim for freedom. Fortunately for her the TARDIS has landed nearby—responding to a distress call sent by the strange artefact—and Turlough sees her drowning and rescues her. Going through her possessions as she recovers he finds the artefact and acknowledges the same triangle symbol is burnt into his own flesh. The Fifth Doctor returns to the TARDIS after attempting to triangulate the source of the signal being emitted by the artefact, and the ship dematerialises, seemingly on its own.
Planet of Fire | Plot
Several scenes in Robert Harris' bestselling novel "Pompeii" are set in the Villa of the Papyri, just before the eruption engulfed it. The villa is mentioned as belonging to Roman aristocrat Pedius Cascus and his wife Rectina. (Pliny the Younger mentions Rectina, whom he calls the wife of Tascius, in Letter 16 of book VI of his "Letters".) At the start of the eruption Rectina prepares to have the library evacuated and sends urgent word to her old friend, Pliny the Elder, who commands the Roman Navy at Misenum on the other side of the Bay of Naples. Pliny immediately sets out in a warship, and gets in sight of the villa, but the eruption prevents him from landing and taking off Rectina and her library – which is thus left for modern archaeologists to find.
Villa of the Papyri | In modern literature
"He slowly comes to the realisation that he's going to be manipulated, no matter what he does. He leaves again, but it's not altogether clear how. It's more or less a transcendental thing involving the eruption (of Vesuvius) - the eruption wakes him up from a sodium pentathol-induced dream."
The Last Days of Pompeii (album) | Plot
Davros plays on the Doctor's sympathies to trick him into revitalising a dying Dalek empire, siphoning some of the Doctor's regeneration energy to do so. The Doctor also enlivens a mass of dying Daleks consigned to the sewers of Skaro, who begin to tear the city apart, and he makes his escape with Clara, but not before visiting Davros as a young boy on the battlefields of Skaro, and instilling in him a lesson about the virtues of mercy. In "The Girl Who Died," the Doctor finally remembers that he shares a face with a man he was persuaded to save in Pompeii, despite his initial reluctance to alter the timeline.
Twelfth Doctor | Television
Davies thought the concept was "so very "Doctor Who"". Because the series was produced out of order, the "ATMOS" subplot was seeded in the previous episode "Partners in Crime". The "fifteenth broken moon" of the Medusa Cascade is also mentioned. The Medusa Cascade was previously mentioned in "Last of the Time Lords", "Partners in Crime", and in "The Fires of Pompeii". In the episode, a system installed in a UNIT jeep undramatically explodes; originally, Raynor wanted it to be a large explosion, but reduced the explosion to several sparks to reduce costs and to lampoon an action movie cliché.
The Sontaran Stratagem | Writing
The Romans is the fourth serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who", which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 16 January to 6 February 1965. Set during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero at the time of the Great Fire of Rome, the serial has the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his new travelling companion Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) investigating intrigue surrounding the death of a lyre player who was on the way to perform at the palace of Nero (Derek Francis) in Rome. At the same time, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) travels to Nero's palace to save his fellow schoolteacher Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), who had been sold to Nero's wife Poppaea (Kay Patrick) as a slave.
The Romans (Doctor Who) | Introduction
Jason's helper in the Athenian vase-paintings is not Medea— who had a history in Athens as the opponent of Theseus— but Athena.
Golden Fleece | Evolution of plot
Alvaro Gasperoni, a Roman simpleton, after a school career characterized by the elementary school certificate obtained in Rome, the middle one in Frosinone, the high school one in Catanzaro and the high school one in Canicattì, obtained with relative difficulty a coveted degree in medicine in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). that the more the schools were in the south, the less they were demanding to issue diplomas. Thanks to his father's powerful recommendation obtained by the P2 Masonic lodge, he soon began working as a doctor in a Roman hospital, surrounded by rampant but equally incompetent colleagues. The head physician of the clinic states that "the value of a doctor is measured by the number of patients he has", and therefore Alvaro has all his relatives hospitalized to obtain the vice-primary chair, which he actually obtains only to be fired by the councilor for health who, disguised as a simple patient, had been admitted to check the progress of the health facility.
Pierino medico della Saub | Plot
In ancient Carthage, the Lady Cressida tells a story from her youth, when she travelled in the TARDIS: a story of a visit to the frozen London of February 1814, where she, the First Doctor and Steven encountered Jane Austen and the egg of the phoenix.
Frostfire | Plot
To suit the American format, books III and IV were combined. Caecilius is the star of the first book. Caecilius is a banker who lives in Pompeii. When the volcano Mt. Vesuvius erupts near Pompeii, Caecilius returns to save his family. A wall falls on him in his house and he tragically dies. The son of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus and Metella, Quintus is the main character of Cambridge Latin. He escapes Pompeii and in the second book goes to Alexandria, Egypt, where he is assigned to find the dying Barbillus' son Rufus. In the third book, he finds Rufus, but also becomes entangled in a plot against King Cogidubnus.
Cambridge Latin Course | American editions
In between there also was a 13 minute "Up Pompeii" segment in the 1970 "Royal Television Gala Performance".
Up Pompeii! | Plot
Attilius's concerns about the water are heightened when he is summoned by a young, wealthy woman named Corelia to investigate water that apparently killed her father's prized fish. Corelia's father is the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, who came to fortune after rebuilding Pompeii from a past earthquake. Ampliatus feeds the slave he deems responsible for the fish's death, to eels for his own amusement. Attilius realizes that, unusually, sulfur poisoned the water. Then, dramatically, the flow of water stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius, since reports claim a shut down of the system just before Nola, meaning that towns from there through Napoli and Misenum are without any water supply.
Pompeii (novel) | Plot summary
The format was an exotic backdrop for an endless series of double entendres and risqué gags from Howerd, constantly breaking the fourth wall with asides to the live studio audience which go unheard by the other characters (a device harking back to classical theatre). He also bemoans the quality of his script, complaining the other players have the best lines. Each episode starts with a prologue from Howerd – which is invariably interrupted by the doom-laden warnings of Senna, or the demands of his master or mistress. Thirteen 30-minute episodes were made, in two series (March – May and September – October 1970).
Up Pompeii! | Plot
Following the events of The Collapsing Empire, End is now isolated from Hub as the result of a Flow shoal breakdown. Seeking to unite the population of the Interdependency behind an agenda to get ahead of the coming collapse of Flow-supported space travel, Grayland II (Cardenia Wu-Patrick) claims, in her capacity as head of the Church of the Interdependency, to have had visions affirming the need to plan for the collapse. This causes religious disquiet in the church, and political intrigue from the House of Nohamapetan and the House of Wu with the aim of claiming the throne from Grayland II through a coup d'etat.
The Consuming Fire | Plot
Carelli, his henchman Greek and Luponi go inside and find Milo waiting for them. When Luponi tries to shoot Milo in the back, Anne shoots from far away and wounds him with a scoped rifle. She reveals to be clothed in a special fire proximity suit, as well as Milo. They seem to let Carelli and Greek get away in order for them to run and trip on a wire connected to explosives. The refireny is blown to pieces and Carelli, Greek and Luponi die while Anne and Milo escape. Avoca sends his men after Anne and Milo but the police surround and arrest them.
Catchfire | Alternative ending ("Backtrack")
They eventually succeed in restoring power to the TARDIS console despite repeated Primord attacks, but Liz's counterpart is forced to kill the Brigade Leader when he turns on the Doctor, who narrowly escapes as the Project Inferno facility is destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption. Back in his own reality, the Doctor urgently tries to have the drilling stopped, but like in the other reality his warnings are ignored. This time, however, the slower pace of the drilling means that Stahlman fully transforms into a Primord before the crust is penetrated instead of afterwards, and after the Doctor kills him with a fire extinguisher, the drilling is stopped in time to prevent disaster.
Inferno (Doctor Who) | Plot
The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice investigate the legendary Cult of the Dark Flame.
The Dark Flame | Plot
Episode 3: a strange man named Joseph starts to stalk Nana and after a few days of stalking he confirms to her that he was sent by his father to protect her from Baso but Nana doesn't believe him. Nana then happens to pass outside of a cemetery and decides to walk inside the cemetery but she starts to hallucinate demons chasing her and decides to leave the cemetery.
The Scream (Greek TV miniseries) | Plot
Pompeii, A.D. 79. Athenian nobleman Glaucus arrives in the bustling and gaudy Roman town and quickly falls in love with the beautiful Greek Ione. Ione's former guardian, the malevolent Egyptian sorcerer Arbaces, has designs on Ione and sets out to destroy their budding happiness. Arbaces has already ruined Ione's sensitive brother Apaecides by luring him to join the vice-ridden priesthood of Isis. The blind slave Nydia is rescued from her abusive owners, Burbo and Stratonice, by Glaucus, for whom she secretly pines. Arbaces horrifies Ione by declaring his love for her, and flying into a rage when she refuses him.
The Last Days of Pompeii | Plot summary
Beginning in medias res, while Piz (Chris Lowell) and Mac (Tina Majorino) are at a party, a bloodied Veronica stumbles to Piz's door and collapses. The episode flashes back to two days earlier. As the Lilith House celebrates the end of the Greek system, Logan (Jason Dohring) abruptly breaks up with Veronica. Weevil helps Dean O'Dell (Ed Begley, Jr.) fix his TV. A man comes into the Dean's office and implicitly threatens to remove his funding if the Greek system stays closed. The Dean tells Keith (Enrico Colantoni) to track his wife, and Veronica sobs in the shower due to her breakup with Logan.
Spit &amp; Eggs | Plot synopsis
The film starts with a view of the petrified remains of the citizens of Pompeii, following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. In northern Britannia, 62 AD, a tribe of Celtic horsemen is brutally wiped out by Romans led by Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). The only survivor. a boy named Milo, whose mother Corvus personally killed, is captured by slave traders. Seventeen years later, in Londinium in 79 A.D., slave owner Graecus (Joe Pingue) watches a class of gladiators battle, unimpressed until he sees the grown Milo (Kit Harington), a talented gladiator the crowds call "the Celt". Milo is soon brought to Pompeii with his fellow slaves.
Pompeii (film) | Plot
The story begins with the Master gloating over his latest scheme to destroy his nemesis. However, instead of only spying on the Doctor and his companion Emma, he is actually in communication with them, so they hear his plans. The Doctor invites his old foe to meet him at a castle on the planet Tersurus. The planet is in ruins, and was the home of a now-extinct race of supremely-enlightened beings shunned by all because they used flatulence as their means of communication. They all died when they discovered fire. The Master appears, gloating that he travelled a century back in time, and persuaded the architect of the castle to put in a secret death trap.
Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death | Plot
The film was very loosely based on the novel, bearing only a passing resemblance to the English author's "The Last Days of Pompeii." Many of the main characters are present and named—notably Glaucus, Arbacès, Ione and Nydia—but the storylines about them are largely changed and many elements are left out. The team of five credited writers, including Sergio Corbucci, Ennio de Concini, Sergio Leone, and genre regular Duccio Tessari, instead weave a new story around persecuted Christians. There is no historical evidence of the existence of a Christian community in Pompeii, but this has appeared on the source novel. The religious aspect of the story was a result of the film's having been underwritten by Opus Dei.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1959 film) | Writing
The series is set in ancient, pre-eruption Pompeii, with the players bearing Latinised names suggestive of their character. Howerd is the slave Lurcio (pronounced "Lurk-io"); his bumbling old master Ludicrus Sextus (Max Adrian, then Wallas Eaton), the promiscuous wife is Ammonia (Elizabeth Larner), their daughter Erotica (Georgina Moon) and their virginal son Nausius (Kerry Gardner). Other regulars are Senna the Soothsayer (Jeanne Mockford) who constantly warns of impending death and destruction and, in series one, Plautus (Willie Rushton) a semi-godlike figure, making pithy comments from a location somewhere between the clouds and Mount Olympus. Guest stars included several actresses from the "Carry On" film series, including Barbara Windsor, Wendy Richard and Valerie Leon.
Up Pompeii! | Plot
Her brother Sulien finds himself caught up along with Varius in a disastrous attack on an arms factory at Veii, just outside Rome. After surviving this and saving Sulien's life, Varius decides to return to political life after all, but Sulien is left with many questions about what happened. Una exposes Drusus's involvement in the murders of Marcus's parents and Varius's wife, although not before he almost kills her. Varius urges Marcus to have Drusus killed but Marcus is reluctant to begin his reign with an extra-judiciary killing, and is content to have Drusus tried for Una's attempted murder as there is no direct evidence for his other crimes.
Rome Burning | Plot
He goes to a Christian meeting along with Croton, a gladiator, to find her. After following her from the meeting, Marcus tries to take her, but Ursus, a strong man and friend of Lygia, kills Croton. Marcus himself is wounded in the fight, but is taken care of by Lygia and the Christians. Seeing their kindness he begins to convert to Christianity, and Lygia accepts him. Rome catches fire while the emperor, Nero, is away. Nero returns and sings to the crowd, but they become angry. At the suggestion of Nero's wife, the Christians are blamed for the fire, providing a long series of cruel spectacles to appease the crowd.
Quo Vadis (2001 film) | Plot
Satisfied that the TARDIS console is now working again, the Doctor attempts to depart, only to end up landing in a local rubbish dump.
Inferno (Doctor Who) | Plot
Above the plinth are painted fields of black bordered in red. In the center of each, a mythological scene is depicted. In these Penelope recognizing the returned Odysseus, Io watched over by Argus, and Medea ruminating on the deaths of her children are recognizable. Between the individual panels are architectural vistas on a white background, with green and pale red buildings depicted in perspective. The delicate architectonic elements dominate the black panels and divide the upper area into fields in which single figures are depicted on a blue background. A girl with sacrificial equipment and a satyr playing an aulos can be seen.
Macellum of Pompeii | Entrance and the West Side
The story tells the life histories about Saint Peter and Paul of Tarsus after the crucifixion of Jesus, and their individual fates in old Rome in the time of the persecution of Christians. Events in the New Testament "Book of Acts" by Luke and in the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius are dramatized and interwoven with the contrasting histories of political intrigues in the public and private lives of the Caesars from Tiberius through Nero related in "The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius, together with the fictional drama of the lives of two Jews and two Romans: Caleb the Zealot and his sister Sarah, and Julius Valerius the Imperial Guard and Corinna the patrician woman who has chosen to be a gladiator.
A.D. (miniseries) | Plot summary
Most of the people who were in Pompeii when the fourth pyroclastic surge hit either died instantly or slowly suffocated to death.
Pompeii: The Last Day | Death throes
Filming an episode abroad had been suggested in 2004, but the episode was the first such occasion. Planning began in April 2007, before Moran had written the script, and continued until the production team travelled to Italy. Several weeks before filming started, a fire disrupted the production. Moving to Rome caused problems for the production team: the equipment truck was delayed for several hours at the Swiss border; the special effects team were delayed for twenty-four hours at Customs in Calais. The production team only had 48 hours to film on location. The aftermath of the eruption was filmed on the same night as the location shots.
The Fires of Pompeii | Filming
The Last Days of Pompeii is an Italian-American 1984 television miniseries filmed at Pinewood Studios and broadcast on ABC-TV and Rai, adapting the 1834 novel of the same name by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was the second English-language adaptation of the book for film or television (previously adapted mainly in Italian; the 1935 RKO film was unrelated to the novel and the 1900 adaptation by Walter R. Booth, while the first cinematic adaptation in English was a short film). On June 5, 2012, Sony released the mini-series on DVD.
The Last Days of Pompeii (miniseries) | Introduction
The episode received generally mixed reviews. Ian Hyland, writing for "News of the World", said that Tate "was almost bearable this week". He also complimented the "TK Maxximus" joke. He was ambivalent to Donna's reaction to the Doctor leaving Caecilius's family to die: he criticised her acting, comparing her to "The Catherine Tate Show" character Joannie "Nan" Taylor, but said "top again if that was intentional". He closed saying "this week was a hundred times better than that lame opening episode. Scarier aliens, stronger guest stars and a proper adult-friendly storyline involving sisterhoods and soothsayers." Scott Matthewman of "The Stage" said that Donna's insistence to change the past "formed the emotional backbone of this episode, producing some truly heartbreaking performances".
The Fires of Pompeii | Critical reception
The episode was filmed at the Cinecittà studios in Rome in September 2007. The filming reused some of the sets from the show "Rome". Other locations suggested were in Malta and Wales, but the size of the project, the biggest since the show's revival, resulted in production taking place in Italy. This was the first time the larger part of an episode was filmed abroad and the first time the cast had filmed abroad since 1996; the television movie was filmed in Vancouver and pick-up shots had previously been made in New York City for "Daleks in Manhattan". Cinecittà had accepted the BBC's request in order to promote the studios, despite the show's small budget.
The Fires of Pompeii | Filming
Pindar employed the quest for the Golden Fleece in his Fourth Pythian Ode (written in 462 BC), though the fleece is not in the foreground. When Aeetes challenges Jason to yoke the fire-breathing bulls, the fleece is the prize: "Let the King do this, the captain of the ship! Let him do this, I say, and have for his own the immortal coverlet, the fleece, glowing with matted skeins of gold". In later versions of the story, the ram is said to have been the offspring of the sea god Poseidon and Themisto (less often, Nephele or Theophane). The classic telling is the "Argonautica" of Apollonius of Rhodes, composed in the mid-third century BC Alexandria, recasting early sources that have not survived.
Golden Fleece | Evolution of plot
The Christian apostle Peter (Finlay Currie) has also been arrested after returning to Rome in response to a sign from the Lord, and he marries Marcus and Lygia in the Circus prisons. Peter is later crucified upside-down, a form of execution conceived by Nero's Praetorian Guard as an expression of mockery. Poppaea (Patricia Laffan), Nero's wife, who lusts after Marcus, devises a diabolical revenge for his rejection of her. Lygia is tied to a stake in the Circus and a wild bull is released into the arena. Lygia's bodyguard Ursus (Buddy Baer) must attempt to kill the bull with his bare hands to save Lygia from being gored to death.
Quo Vadis (1951 film) | Plot
Hercules frees the woman from her chains and takes some water from the fountain. After this the fountain begins to boil and begins dissolving everything in the cave. Hercules grabs the woman and they leave the cave. Outside the cave Zeus appears and Hercules tells Zeus the water will cure Chiron of his wound. Later Hercules arrives at Chiron's house, he gives him the water and he drinks it. The wound heals, but after a few seconds the wound worsens. Hercules tells him he will find a cure for his wound. Meanwhile, all over the village fires are being inexplicably extinguished.
Hercules and the Circle of Fire | Plot
In 1917, Diplomatul (Dinică) and young Darie (Oseciuc) escape from a Bucharest occupied by the German Army only to come across, as they progress 'through the ashes' of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the sufferance, despair, generosity and heroism that will lead them to very different conclusions.
Through the Ashes of the Empire | Plot
Deciding the fleece has little power after all, Jason accepts this decision. Medea is stripped of her ornate ethnic garb and dressed in the garments of a traditional Greek housewife. She bears Jason two sons. But he grows tired of her and decides to pursue a political marriage to a Corinthian princess, Glauce. Chiron reappears to Jason, as both a centaur and a human, to remind Jason that this is his and Medea's destiny. The enraged Medea plots revenge against Jason and his new bride and sends Glauce a robe bewitched with magic herbs. Although Medea intends for the poison to cause the princess and her father, Creon, to burst into flames; instead Glauce and Creon are driven insane and leap to their deaths.
Medea (1969 film) | Plot
In Pompeii 79AD, Glaucus and Jone are in love with each other. Arbaces, the Egyptian High Priest, is determined to conquer her. Glaucus buys the blind slave Nydia who is mishandled by her owner. Nydia falls in love with Glaucus and asks Arbaces for his help. He gives her a potion to make Glaucus fall in love with her. In fact it is a poison which will destroy his mind. Ione's brother Apaecides threatens to reveal publicly his wrongdoings. Arbaces kills him and accuses Glaucus of the crime. He locks Nydia in a cellar to prevent her from speaking. Glaucus is condemned to be thrown to the lions.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1908 film) | Plot
On the road, they see a horse fall while drawing a carriage carrying Cassia (Emily Browning), returning after a year in Rome, and her servant Ariadne (Jessica Lucas). Milo kills the horse to end its suffering, and Cassia is drawn to him. Cassia is the daughter of the city governor Severus (Jared Harris) and his wife Aurelia (Carrie-Anne Moss). Severus is hoping to have the new Emperor Titus invest in plans to rebuild Pompeii, despite Cassia's warning of Rome becoming more corrupt. Felix (Dalmar Abuzeid), a servant, takes Cassia’s horse Vires for a ride only to be swallowed up when a quake from Mount Vesuvius opens up the ground under him.
Pompeii (film) | Plot
The picture quality of some of the Canadian finds was not high, and so their marketability was severely limited. However, six episodes were released on VHS in 1991 by BBC Video. (These tapes were re-released by Second Sight in 1999, with a small music edit made to the episode featuring Jamus Bondus.) In 2004–2005, through the success of a group of BBC employees' restoration work on similar NTSC-only episodes of "Doctor Who", the BBC decided to convert all their NTSC-only productions (as reclaimed from various international stations) back to their original PAL format using a new computer-controlled process, Reverse Standards Conversion.
Up Pompeii! | DVD release
When the skies clear, the TARDIS is seemingly destroyed; all that is left is the Doctor's hat stand.
Frontios | Plot
The episode begins with Brutus and Cassius on their march through Greece with their army of 100,000 soldiers to challenge Octavian. Cassius is worried about the grain supply for their army, whereas Brutus is cheerful, having spent time getting to know the men and jubilantly talking about saving the Republic. In Cisalpine Gaul Marc Antony, Lepidus and Octavian are devising a plan to surprise Brutus and Cassius. They believe their enemies do not know that they are reunited and hope to overcome Brutus and Cassius with an unexpectedly large army. Octavian comes up with a list of supporters of Brutus in Rome and proposes to send the list to Lucius Vorenus and order him to have them killed.
Philippi (Rome) | Plot summary
He tells Reinette to prepare to leave. The Doctor returns to Reinette, but finds that seven years have passed for her and she has died. King Louis gives the Doctor a letter in which Reinette hopes for the Doctor's quick return. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS. As the episode ends, the lifeless ship drifts through space; its name is SS "Madame de Pompadour".
The Girl in the Fireplace | Plot
When the people discover what has happened, they cry out against Nero. Poppea suggests that the people be told that the Christians set the fire, and the fickle people believe the lie, saving Nero from their just wrath. The persecutions of the Christians now begins, and Marcia and her slave are among those destined to be fed to the lions. Then the huge servant breaks the lion's jaw. Meanwhile, the legions have revolted against their oppressor and arrive during the exhibition in the arena. Nero flees but, when he cannot escape, commits suicide. Poppea, brutally kicked by Nero, dies in her betrayed husband's arms.
Nero (1922 film) | Plot
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.
Up Pompeii (film) | Plot
Seleucus swam to fetch the diadem back, placing it on his own head while returning to the boat to keep it dry. The validity of the story is dubious. The story of the dinner party of Medeios may be true, but the plot to poison the King is unlikely. In the final story, Seleucus reportedly slept in the temple of Serapis in the hope that Alexander's health might improve. The validity of this story is also questionable, as the Graeco-Egyptian Serapis had not been invented at the time.
Seleucus I Nicator | Early career under Alexander the Great
Hera stops the flames and Zeus helps Hercules, who thanks him for saving his life. Before leaving the cage Hercules picks up a stick and makes a torch. Zeus asks if he knows the power of the flames, Hercules acknowledges that he does. Hercules takes the torch to Chiron's house and asks him to step inside a circle of straw. Chiron stands in the center of the circle and Hercules lights the straw with the torch. Chiron drops to his knees and cries out. As the flames die out Chiron exclaims that his wound is healed, the flames had burned away his immortality and healed the wound.
Hercules and the Circle of Fire | Plot
When a Former Special Ops commando visits Pompeii, Italy, his wife and daughter are trapped as Mount Vesuvius erupts with massive force. While his family fights to survive the deadly onslaught of heat and lava, he enlists his former teammates in a daring operation beneath the ruins of Pompeii.
Apocalypse Pompeii | Premise
"The Ram Has Touched the Wall" is the fifth episode of the first season of the television series "Rome". Pompey must stall for time, and his supporters urge for peace with Caesar. Caesar and Antony must balance that which is expedient with how their actions will appear to the people. Atia's jealousy of Servilia will lead to actions that spell humiliation for Caesar, and despair for Servilia. A sudden reversal of fortune forces Vorenus to choose whether it is to the Legions or the underworld of Rome that he will sell his integrity. Servilia's rage turns her into dark paths of revenge.
The Ram has Touched the Wall | Introduction
There, his army suffers from an ambush and Julian is hit by an arrow. The person who shot the arrow was not a Persian, but Taianus. Collapsing, Julian utters his last words: "You have won, Galilean!"
Giuliano l'Apostata | Plot
To create the falling ash, the special effects team used a large mass of cork, with a "constant supply of debris raining down". Scenes set at the Temple of Sibyl were filmed at the Temple of Peace, Cardiff on 18 and 19 September 2007.
The Fires of Pompeii | Filming
When Keidai falls into a coma, he is able to relive the last moments of Pompeii where his actions put Sirix's suffering to rest, allowing him to move on with his life and confess his love to Mii.
NG Life | Plot
When his son disclosed a plan to assassinate Hannibal, Calavius was able to dissuade him from this rash deed. Some of the Calavii were subsequently held responsible for a series of fires set at Rome in 211 BC, supposedly set in revenge for the treatment of Campania by the Romans.
Ofilius Calavius | Family
The novel is narrated by Xeones, a perioikoi and one of only three Greek survivors of the Battle of Thermopylae. His story is dictated to King Xerxes and transcribed by his court historian, Gobartes. At Thermopylae, the allied Greek nations deployed a small force of four thousand Greek heavy infantry against the invading Persian army of two million strong. Leading the Greeks was a small force of three hundred Spartans, chosen because they were all "sires" — men who had to have sons who could preserve their blood line, should they fall in battle. Thermopylae was the only gateway into Greece for the Persian army, and presented the perfect choke point — a narrow pass bordered by a huge mountain wall on one side and a cliff drop-off to the sea on the other.
Gates of Fire | Plot summary
The Doctor offers to take the phoenix to an uninhabited planet close to a white-hot sun, but it refuses, not wishing to be alone. The Doctor, Vicki, Steven and Miss Austen quench the furnace, killing the phoenix – except for one cinder, which flies into Vicki's eye. There it remained for years. Vicki parted company with the Doctor and Steven, and married the Trojan prince Troilus, joining Aeneas on his travels and eventually settling in Carthage. There, one day, missing her former life and feeling alone, Vicki cried and found the cinder, still living and able to communicate. She kept the cinder burning in an old oil lamp, and it is the cinder to whom she is relating her story.
Frostfire | Synopsis
In "The Fires of Pompeii", when companion Donna Noble attempts to speak the local language directly, her words are humorously rendered into what sounds to a local like Welsh. One flaw of this translation process is that if the language that a word is being translated into does not have a concept for it, e.g, the Romans don't have a word or a general understanding of "volcano" as Mt. Vesuvius has not erupted yet.
Universal translator | "Doctor Who"
Having crossed the Rubicon (the southern border of one of the provinces he controlled, Cisalpine Gaul) Julius Caesar leads his veterans of the Gallic Wars toward Rome, aware that the dictator Pompey has declared him an enemy of the state and his actions will likely end in Civil War. During the journey, his army encounters mild resistance; however, the legions are no match for veterans of Gaul, and Caesar forces the surrender without a single man being killed. He then pardons the legion - the first of many acts of propaganda in the coming war. The speed of his journey south catches Pompey by surprise, who consequently flees to Greece along with the majority of the Roman Senate.
The Gods of War | Plot summary