After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
When a soldier returns home from the wars, he finds that a local landowner has been terrorizing his family. He disguises himself as a bandit known as "The Black Eagle" and begins taking revenge on the landowner by ravaging his "empire". However, things take a different turn when he falls for the landowner's beautiful daughter
