Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?

The Roman emperor Nero ranks among the many most notorious rulers of the Roman Empire for supposedly fiddling whereas Rome burned. However did that actually occur? And does Nero actually deserve his dangerous status?

As with all tales, we now have to contemplate the supply.

Born on Dec. 15, A.D. 37, Nero turned the fifth emperor of Rome and the final of the Julio-Claudians, the dynasty that based the empire, in keeping with archaeologist Francesca Bologna, who curated the Nero Venture on the British Museum (opens in new tab) in London.

Nero was solely 2 years outdated when his mom, Agrippina the Youthful — whose great-grandfather was Augustus, the empire’s first emperor — was exiled by Emperor Caligula. At age 3, Nero’s father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, died, leaving him within the care of his aunt. When Caligula was murdered in A.D. 41 and succeeded by Emperor Claudius, Nero was reunited with Agrippina, who later married her uncle Claudius, Bologna famous.

Regardless of having a organic son, Claudius designated Nero, his nice nephew and stepson, as his inheritor, and Nero ascended to energy in A.D. 54 on the age of 16. However his reign was quick: Nero died in A.D. 68 at age 30 after taking his personal life.

Associated: Did all roads result in Rome?

Roman historians have contended that Nero killed Agrippina and two of his wives, solely cared about his artwork, and had little or no curiosity in ruling the empire, Bologna mentioned. Nevertheless, “our sources for Nero are folks that hated him,” Harold Drake, a analysis professor emeritus of historical past on the College of California, Santa Barbara, instructed Reside Science. One all the time has to remember that a lot of his status “was written for us by his adversaries,” he mentioned. Bologna agreed, noting in her submit for the British Museum that accounts of Nero “had been eager on representing him within the worst potential mild.”

In July A.D. 64, Nero was vacationing in Antium (what’s now the seaside city of Anzio, Italy) when he discovered about what later turned referred to as the Nice Fireplace of Rome, Drake mentioned. Earlier than the conflagration burned itself out every week later, 10 of Rome’s 14 districts had burned to the bottom and hundreds in a metropolis of 500,000 to 1 million folks had misplaced every thing.

Nero raced again to Rome. He organized emergency shelter and provides of food and drinks for the general public, and opened his personal palace and gardens for shelter, Drake famous (opens in new tab).

A Roman coin which has the profile of Nero on it. On the left the text reads 'Nero' and on the right it reads ' Caesar.'

A Roman coin which has the portrait of Nero on it. (Picture credit score: Luso by way of Getty Pictures)

So, if Nero wasn’t in Rome when the conflagration began, what is the origin of the rumor that “he fiddled” whereas the empire’s capital burned?

Nero fancied himself a musician. Sooner or later through the reduction efforts, a rumor mentioned he consoled himself by singing about one other nice hearth — the autumn of Troy, the Homeric story that is the main target of the Roman poet Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid,” Drake mentioned.

“He had executed every thing he might to take care of the fireplace, and he was exhausted,” Drake mentioned. “Being of a creative bent, he consoled himself by evaluating this catastrophe to the autumn of Troy, which Romans appreciated to suppose they descended from, by way of the legendary ancestor Aeneas.”

However even when Nero did play music whereas Rome was burning, he wouldn’t have used a fiddle, as bowed devices wouldn’t turn out to be widespread for one more 1,000 years, Drake mentioned. As an alternative, to accompany himself, Nero most likely would have used a cithara, a conveyable harp-like instrument with seven strings, he defined.

There was precedent for Romans appearing in such a fashion. For instance, the historian Polybius wrote that because the Roman basic Scipio Aemelianus watched Carthage being destroyed, he quoted Homer’s “The Iliad,” saying, “‘And a time will come when holy Ilium shall fall, and Priam, and Priam’s folks of the great ashen spear,'” Drake mentioned. “He was not pondering of Carthage however expressing worry {that a} like destiny awaited the Romans.”

Within the aftermath of the Nice Fireplace of Rome, Nero supplied monetary incentives to landlords to clear their property of particles and start rebuilding, insisted that builders use stone as an alternative of wooden, straightened and widened streets, and ensured an sufficient water provide for town, Drake mentioned. “Does that appear just like the exercise of a madman?” he requested.

So why would possibly historical past bear in mind Nero as a foul ruler? Nearly every thing the fashionable world is aware of about Nero comes from two sources: Roman senators and Christians. To each, Nero was an enemy.

“Basically, senators beloved to indulge their fantasy of a restored republic, typically by partaking in assassination plots, after which being outraged when the emperor reacted with hostility,” Drake mentioned.

As for the Christians, Roman senator and historian Tacitus instructed that as a result of a rumor started circulating that Nero was accountable for the fireplace, he appeared for a scapegoat within the Christians. The end result was that many died from crucifixions, fires and different means. This usually led Christians accountable Nero for the persecution they might endure from the Roman Empire, Drake mentioned.

“I see no cause to doubt that Christians suffered from widespread resentment,” Drake mentioned. “However did Nero merely capitalize on this to deflect blame from himself, or was he giving in to widespread strain?”

All that mentioned, “I do not wish to fall into the lure of justifying every thing Nero did simply because he has suffered from dangerous press,” Drake mentioned. “Nero was unquestionably pampered and overindulged by his tutors and, like different tyrants at different occasions, turned way more arbitrary in his actions.”

Ultimately, though Nero won’t have been a madman, “there’s little cause to doubt that he turned more and more unstable” over the course of his reign, Drake mentioned. After the Nice Fireplace of Rome, a gaggle of nobles tried to assassinate him, and Nero grew more and more paranoid, in keeping with Hareth Al Bustani, writer of “Nero and the Artwork of Tyranny (opens in new tab)” (Independently printed, 2021).

Maybe, given all that occurred to Nero, any instability late in his life “ought to come as no shock,” Drake mentioned.

Initially printed on Reside Science.

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