Michele Moretti is an aspiring director who lives with his brother Niccolò with whom he manages mattresses sales; he spends his free time with his friends Francone and Giovanni and with Anna, a girl he has met and who sells paintings at traffic lights. One day he gets an interview with the director of a television network and, to make a good impression, he declares that he is Nanni Moretti 's younger brother.

The work-shy, lazy Germanicus is taken to Rome by slave traders and sold straight to the nouveau riche Roman Tusnelda. He manages to escape, but only to end up in the next misery as a taster at the imperial court. When the emperor dies, he is arrested as an emperor's assassin and is to be thrown to the tigers in the arena.With the help of the black slave Saba, he manages to win the deadly fight and is proclaimed - against his will - the new emperor of the Roman Empire.His pragmatic ideas as a statesman explain why the Roman Empire ended so abruptly. At the side of Saba, who is elevated to empress, he returns to his home village of Sumpfing, where he now promises himself completely new perspectives ...