Nero may not have been history’s most famous arsonist

Posted in Ancient History, Disasters, Historical articles, History, Royalty on Wednesday, 11 December 2013

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This edited article about the Roman Empire first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 488 published on 22 May 1971.

Great fire of Rome, picture, image, illustration

The Great Fire of Rome in AD 64

Although there is no doubt that the Emperor Nero existed, there are many facets to his character which remain a mystery. For an instance, for over nineteen hundred years it had been said that he was irresponsible enough to fiddle while Rome burned. But strangely enough, rogue and tyrant though Nero was, he was not guilty of this one crime for which he is most remembered.

Everybody knows the saying that Nero fiddled while Rome burned – but did he? Was he, in fact, so much of a Roman playboy that he was prepared to stand by and do nothing while the greatest city in the world was ravaged by fire?

Was Nero, emperor of Rome, ruler of the world, a rogue? Did he, as has been suggested, start the fire that unleashed a tide of death and destruction through the streets of Rome in A.D. 64?

To see what kind of man Nero really was it is necessary to go back to the beginning of his reign. On 13th October, A.D. 54, Nero was proclaimed emperor. He was just 17, he had charm, he had wit – and he had all the makings of a tyrant.

Things started quietly – even modestly. No, said Nero, he felt he was too young to accept the title of Pater Patriae. No, said Nero, he would consider himself unworthy of the honour of having the Roman year moved to start in December – his own birthday.

But soon his regime was turning into the worst kind of dictatorship, making a mockery of the great traditions of Roman justice.

He passed a law that when a master was murdered by one of his slaves all the slaves must share the punishment. This law Nero had obeyed to the letter. When a prefect of the city, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered, every single one of his 400 slaves was put to death.

This mass execution shocked all Rome, but Nero, now convinced above all else that he was something of a god, left the affairs of state to two other men, Seneca and Burrus, and devoted himself to the pursuit of pleasure.

In this, at least he showed himself more than competent. He surrounded himself with a group of gay young aristocratic blades, who were to a man dedicated to seeing that the emperor and ruler of the world had never a dull moment.

Nero was something of a poet. He was also a devotee of the arts, and painting and sculpture were his recreations by day. By night he and his merry men danced and sang into the early hours of the next day.

Senators reared in the traditions of stoicism shook their grey beards and wondered what the empire was coming to. The good citizens of Rome, hearing great shouts and whoops, screams and laughter, as they lay in their beds like decent, law-abiding citizens, muttered:

“Ah, Nero’s having another night out again.”

Next Nero began to show himself unscrupulous as well as dissipated. Having fallen in love with the wife of his best friend Salvius Otto he promptly dispatched him, with a pat on the back, to govern far-off Lusitania.

The lady, called Poppaea, stayed behind, of course, and seeing that she had won the emperor’s heart, she saw no good reason why she should not become empress.

To this Nero’s mother, Agrippina, was bitterly opposed. Nero, determined that nothing and no one was to stand in the way of his wishes, began to plot to murder his mother.

He arranged to have Agrippina invited to a banquet in a place to which she would have to make a journey by water. At midnight, with a loving kiss and a “Hope you enjoyed the banquet, mother” he saw her on to the boat that was to take her back home across the lake.

As the ship set sail Nero smiled to himself. He had had the vessel so constructed that it would sink in the middle of the lake.

It did, but Agrippina managed to swim to the shore and safety. She realised well enough that this must have been a plot by her son, but thought it best to feign ignorance. She sent a messenger to Nero, informing him that she had been saved.

But for Nero there was now no turning back. He put out the story that his mother had plotted to murder him, that the messenger was the would-be assassin, and he sent a party of sailors to the lake-side villa where his mother was sheltering, and there they murdered her.

Yet for all Nero’s frantic propaganda Rome was a city of whispers, all directed against the emperor. Satirical lampoons were broadcast about him and Rome was ready to believe anything of Nero, the more evil the better.

They were more than ready to believe that on the night of 18th July, A.D. 64 when the first flames began to lick the might of Rome, Nero calmly watched it all from the Tower of Macenas, and that, as the panic spread through the streets below, he was reciting one of his own poems, the Sack of Troy.

Well, what really happened that night? Nero was, in fact, at Antium on holiday.

He was, it would be safe to suggest, just settling down to yet another gay night when a messenger, his horse lathering from the hard, fast ride, arrived to inform him that a fire had broken out in Rome and was out of control.

Nero was on his feet at once. His concern was not so much for the populace, as for the many fine buildings and treasures of art with which the city abounded.

As he arrived in Rome the night was suffused with the angry glow of a great fire. The Circus Maximus seemed to be the seat of the outbreak and Nero hurried there, directing the fire-fighting and arranging for relief organisations.

It was of little avail. The great fire of Rome raged for nine days. Looting and murdering mobs ran wild through the streets. Panic took hold of the citizens as the mighty Temple of Jupiter crumbled before the flames to be followed by the temples of Nesta and Diana.

There were thousands of homeless people, angry people, people looking for somebody to blame for their misfortunes. Well, who better than that decadent ruler, the tyrant Nero himself?

His enemies, of which he was not short, lost no time in putting about the story that Nero himself had not only watched the fire, but had started it because – and this was a masterful allegation – because he wanted to rebuild the city in the style which HE fancied.

But although history condemns Nero and his reign, there is no historical evidence for laying the crime of arson at Nero’s door. First of all there was a full moon that night the fire started – not the sort of night a fire-bug, even of such an exalted status as Nero – would choose for his work.

Second, if Nero had started the fire, it seems unlikely he would have advertised the fact by climbing a a tower to obtain a better view of it all.

Still, the story was believed in Rome, and hostility towards Nero increased, despite the fact that he did his best to distract the attention of the populace by throwing Christians to the lions and using them as human torches for the athletic games.

On 9th July, A.D. 68, with his enemies closing in on him, and faced with a rebellion among his own troops, Nero took his own life.

It is one of the ironies of history that of all the crimes he committed, he was not guilty of the one for which he is remembered, that of fiddling while Rome burnt.

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