Back in 64 A.D., Fire reportedly ravaged Rome for days, destroying 70 percent of the city, leaving most of its population homeless.
According to the well-known expression, Rome Is Burning, the Empire’s emperor at the time, the decadent and unpopular Nero, fiddled around while Rome burned. The expression has a double meaning: Not only did Nero play while his people suffered, but he was an ineffectual leader in a time of crisis.
Nero had many enemies and will forever be remembered as one of history’s most sadistic and cruelest leaders.
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Rome while watching the city burn.
When the Great Fire broke out, Nero was at his villa at Antium, some 35 miles from Rome. Though he immediately returned and began relief measures, people still didn’t trust him. Some even believed he had ordered the fire started, especially after he used land cleared by the fire to build his Golden Palace and its surrounding pleasure gardens.
Nero blamed the Christians for the fire. Christians were an obscure religious sect and many were arrested and executed. Nero was also guilty of many other crimes…
The centuries following his reign, Nero would become infamous for debauchery, misrule and anti-Christian persecution. In the short term, his demise marked the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, which had ruled Rome since 27 B.C. It would be 30 years before Rome had another emperor, Trajan, who would rule as long as Nero had.
Nero’s death was followed by the chaotic “Year of the Four Emperors,” which the Roman historian Tacitus described as “a period rich in disasters … even in peace full of horrors.” So while many of Nero’s contemporaries celebrated his death, others looked back on the pomp of his reign... And so it goes.
