FAMOUS STORIES OF ROMAN: NERO AND ROME BURN..

One of the most famous stories of Roman decadence concerns Nero, the emperor who blithely “fiddled while Rome burned” during the great fire of 64 A.D. According to some ancient historians, the emperor had ordered his men to start the fire in order to clear space for his new palace. But while Nero was certainly no saint—he reportedly ordered the murder of his own mother during his rise to power—the story of his fiendish fiddling is likely exaggerated.

While some ancient chroniclers did describe the music-loving emperor as singing while he watched flames consume the city, the historian Tacitus would later denounce these claims as vicious rumors. According to him, Nero was away at Antium during the early stages of the blaze, and upon returning to Rome helped lead rescue and rebuilding efforts and even opened his palace gardens to those who lost their homes. A further strike against the legend is that the fiddle would not even be invented for several hundred years. If Nero played any instrument while Rome burned—which remains up for debate—it would most likely have been a cithara, a kind of lyre.