# Emperor Nero and the Burning of Rome **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449 "2013-01-17T01:56:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/1 "2013-01-17T01:56:19Z")
I recently read “Quo Vadis” but I have to ask, is there any evidence at ALL that Nero started the infamous fire that burned Rome and then “fiddled” while Rome burned? I have read a little bit about it, but I see no evidence of it. Emperor Nero has a horrible reputation because of history, but I have to wonder: Was he really all that bad? If so, then he deserves it. If not, why did even the pagan historians seem to despise him. FYI–world history was not my forte’ so if anybody here has anything concrete to offer then I would appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/2 "2013-01-17T02:00:06Z")
[Probably not.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome#Background) > [@](#): > > It was said by Cassius Dio that Nero, the emperor at the time, sang the “Sack of Ilium” in stage costume as the city burned.[6] However, Tacitus’ account has Nero in Antium at the time of the fire.[7] Tacitus said that Nero’s playing his lyre and singing while the city burned was only a rumor.[7] > > According to Tacitus, upon hearing news of the fire, Nero rushed back to Rome to organize a relief effort, which he paid for from his own funds.[7] After the fire, Nero opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors.[7] In the wake of the fire, he made a new urban development plan. Houses after the fire were spaced out, built in brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads.[8] Nero also built a new palace complex known as the Domus Aurea in an area cleared by the fire.[9] The size of this complex is debated (from 100 to 300 acres or 40.5 to 121.4 hectares).[10][11][12] To find the necessary funds for the reconstruction, tributes were imposed on the provinces of the empire.[13] Nero [was nasty in some ways,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Nero#Matricide_and_consolidation_of_power) but blaming him for the Great Fire is a canard. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/3 "2013-01-17T02:09:29Z")
I don’t think that this is going to be much of a debate. You might get some more answers with expanded information in General Questions. Off it goes. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/4 "2013-01-17T03:44:22Z")
In all likelihood, Nero predates the fiddle. It was a kithara. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/5 "2013-01-17T05:22:15Z")
There’s no proof but some people look at the same evidence that BrainGlutton posted and find it suspicious. Nero wasn’t in Rome when it burned? Well, nobody is suggesting he personally torched the city. If he was planning on having the city burnt, he’d have his minions do it. He meanwhile would be out of the city where he’d be safe from the fire and any suspicions. Nero took charge the recovery and rebuilding efforts? Somewhat unusual for him - he wasn’t normally overly concerned with the public welfare. But he seemed to have some real enthusiasm for this project - almost as if it was something he’d been looking forward to. And it’s a little strange how he already had a set of plans drawn up for how Rome could be rebuilt after a major fire. And it’s clear a lot of people did suspect Nero at the time. Which doesn’t prove he’s guilty but does show it wouldn’t have been considered out of character for him. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/6 "2013-01-17T05:25:45Z")
Why would he burn Rome? What would he gain. As for the rumors, Governments are always blamed in the aftermath of disasters, not necessarily for causing them, but for being incompetent, indifferent etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/7 "2013-01-17T05:42:02Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > In all likelihood, Nero predates the fiddle. It was a kithara. Electric or acoustic? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/8 "2013-01-17T05:43:36Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Why would he burn Rome? What would he gain. Nero was an artist first and foremost. He loved beauty. Through the Great Fire, he could clear away all those ugly, smelly old tenements, and gain space to build his [Golden House.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_House) (I think there was a _Dr. Who_ episode where that was his clear motivation.) ---
**Author:** ![Danger-Mouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Danger-Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danger-Mouse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/9 "2013-01-17T08:44:58Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Why would he burn Rome? What would he gain. As for the rumors, Governments are always blamed in the aftermath of disasters, not necessarily for causing them, but for being incompetent, indifferent etc. He blamed it on Christians, the burning was a reason to round them up and kill them ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/10 "2013-01-17T11:54:42Z")
He blamed it on Christians, sure, but there’s not really any evidence that I know of that Nero particularly cared about the Christians before the burning of the city. I think it was more like “The city burned. Lets blame those guys. They’re pretty weird and horrible anyway.” Fires in Rome weren’t exactly uncommon things, though. The place was a firetrap. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/11 "2013-01-17T15:29:01Z")
From [Tacitus](http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html): > [@](#): > > Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighbouring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity. > > At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of the Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a vast space, so that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground and an open sky. But before people had laid aside their fears, the flames returned, with no less fury this second time, and especially in the spacious districts of the city…And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy because it broke out on the Aemilian property of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name. Tigellinus was Nero’s prefect of the Praetorians (essentially head of the emperor’s secret police) and his drinking buddy. Tacitus’ narrative frequently alludes to the popular hatred and distrust of Nero–here he’s rumored to have callously celebrated the fire, then to have restarted it. Tacitus even records some rather petty criticism of measures Nero ordered to improve fire safety as part of the rebuild (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > The buildings themselves, to a certain height, were to be solidly constructed, without wooden beams, of stone from Gabii or Alba, that material being impervious to fire. And to provide that the water which individual license had illegally appropriated, might flow in greater abundance in several places for the public use, officers were appointed, and everyone was to have in the open court the means of stopping a fire. Every building, too, was to be enclosed by its own proper wall, not by one common to others. These changes which were liked for their utility, also added beauty to the new city. **Some, however, thought that its old arrangement had been more conducive to health, inasmuch as the narrow streets with the elevation of the roofs were not equally penetrated by the sun’s heat, while now the open space, unsheltered by any shade, was scorched by a fiercer glow.** It’s little details like this that make Tacitus (even with his sometimes cryptic Latin) such a delight. Even though he considers the idea that Nero deliberately burned Rome to be just a rumor, it is the fact that the rumor existed at all which says volumes about the emperor’s character. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/12 "2013-01-17T17:01:14Z")
Tacitus was not particularly fond of Nero, I think its telling that he thinks the rumor is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/13 "2013-02-19T18:26:39Z")
Ted Champlin’s work makes a powerful case that Nero caused the fire deliberately. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/14 "2013-02-19T19:29:54Z")
Apocryphal story no doubt, but one that I find amusing: detractors of Nero chose to translate ‘fretted’ in “Nero fretted while Rome burned” in a manner that loses the proper meaning of fretting in that context, but is a technically correct meaning of fretting nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/15 "2013-02-19T19:50:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Nero was an artist first and foremost. He loved beauty. Through the Great Fire, he could clear away all those ugly, smelly old tenements, and gain space to build his [Golden House.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_House) (I think there was a _Dr. Who_ episode where that was his clear motivation.) Even at that, where in ancient Rome would Nero have hung out and watched it burn? The Domus Aurea was built on the Palatine Hill after the fire. The Palatine hill is right there by the Forum, Capitoline Hill and most everything else- literally downtown. I think it’s just a legend meant to emphasize Nero’s general bad reputation. ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/16 "2013-02-19T20:46:46Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Apocryphal story no doubt, but one that I find amusing: detractors of Nero chose to translate ‘fretted’ in “Nero fretted while Rome burned” in a manner that loses the proper meaning of fretting in that context, but is a technically correct meaning of fretting nonetheless. Neither kitharae nor fiddles have frets. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/17 "2013-02-19T21:00:43Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > In all likelihood, Nero predates the fiddle. It was a kithara. Lyre! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/18 "2013-02-19T23:23:44Z")
Nero was not liked by the aristocrats because he collected further power to himself, reduced the influence of the aristocrats and played to the masses. The survivors write history and the long term survivors were aristocrats, like Tacitus. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emperor-nero-and-the-burning-of-rome/647449/19 "2013-02-20T01:33:46Z")
IIRC reading some Roman history years ago, Nero had just before the fire brought to Rome a lot of artifacts from Greece, probably worth of millions that he had paid from his own pocket. They all went up in flames with his Domus Transitoria, so either Nero was innocent or the arson was pretty badly botched. It was also mentioned that when the city was burning, Christians thought that the world was ending and went dancing in the streets. Which obviously made others furious as they were losing all they owned and people were dying. Allegedly some Christians even started additional fires and even sabotaged firefighting. So when Nero heard those cases and then the rumors about himself, his next actions were quite predictable. Nero himself was apparently a spoiled rich kid full of himself and very nasty and violent when he was drunk ( and he was drunk often ). The senators and patricians, who eventually wrote the history, obviously hated him for this. With general population that never met him personally, he was at first very popular, but after he started public performances ( singing and acting ), they considered him just a buffoon and a disgrace to the throne. People still saw his ghost in Vatican more than a thousand years later ( up to 1600’s? )…