I don’t time travel for the sake of it. Honest!

Ok, so my latest idea involves time travel.

It isn’t the first idea to involve it and I’m sure it won’t be the last, but my question is does it have to?

In short, a high powered ruthless business man is dumped back in Roman times. The reason for this is to put him in an alien environment where he is totally out of his depth and where his comfort zone is not just hundreds of miles away, but thousands of years. An environment where his decisions could cost the lives of himself and those around him, rather than a client’s money. If he survives and makes it back to the present-day (it would be a bit naff if he didn’t), he will have learned a life lesson and loose his ruthless and cold personality and become the all round humble good guy. Time travel isn’t the main character’s job and he doesn’t zip back and forth all the time. It will happen only twice in the story, back in time at the start and forward in time at the end.

Will time travel just be seen by others as an attempt to spice up the story? I could just drop him in a war zone half way round the world, but to me he has a direct way back home (plane, car, boat, on foot etc…) because the time is the same. If he walks home in Roman times he will have to sit on his arse for 2000 years while civilisation catches up and ‘home’ arrives. In short there is no home and he has to deal with it.

Any thoughts?