Great Fire of Rome

• 1. Introduction

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  The Great Fire of Rome ignited on the evening of the 18th-the 19th of July, AD 64, in the merchant shops clustered around the Circus Maximus, Rome's great chariot stadium. Strong night winds drove the flames outward through a tangle of narrow, twisting streets and tightly packed apartment blocks. Six days later, the fire seemed to die. Then it reignited and burned for another three days. When it was finally over, ten of Rome's fourteen districts had been destroyed or severely damaged.

  Who started it? The answer has never been settled. Six distinct stories circulated in the ancient world, and the historical sources that might have resolved the question did not survive. What we do know is that the fire killed hundreds of people, displaced countless more, strained the imperial treasury, set off a wave of persecution, and left its mark on the physical shape of Rome in ways that can still be traced today.

  The questions that matter are not just how the fire burned, but why Rome was so vulnerable, who bore the blame, and what Nero's government actually did in the years that followed.

• 2. A City Waiting to Burn

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  Augustus had recognized the danger of fire in Rome as early as 22 BC, when he personally funded a fire brigade. In AD 6, he formalized this into the Vigiles, officially the cohortes vigilum, staffed by freedmen and charged with guarding Rome at night. A separate unit, the cohortes urbanae, covered the daytime. By the time of the great fire, there were thousands of Vigiles stationed across the city.

  Their equipment, however, was limited to buckets of water, blankets, vinegar, and the option of demolishing buildings to create firebreaks. Rome's water came in by nine aqueducts before the fire, but these were not equipped to fight fires. The Curator Aquarum, or Water Commissioner, spent much of his time chasing illegal water connections rather than preparing any kind of firefighting infrastructure.

  Fires before AD 64 had struck the Basilica Julia in AD 12, the Basilica Aemilia in AD 14, the Campus Martius in AD 22, Caelian Hill in AD 26, and the Circus Maximus itself in AD 36. Each fire had burned something significant, and each one passed. The city rebuilt and grew denser. By the time the July fire broke out, Rome was, as historians now broadly agree, too crowded and too poorly prepared to stop a large-scale conflagration. The event had become a matter of when, not if.

• 3. Nero at the Edge of Power

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  Nero was proclaimed Roman emperor in AD 54, at the age of seventeen. In the early years of his rule, he relied heavily on advisers, but that dependence gradually fell away. By AD 59, encouraged by his mistress Poppaea, he had his own mother Agrippina murdered. His leading adviser Seneca was later discharged and forced to commit suicide.

  Historians of his time noted that Nero was broadly popular among ordinary Romans but disliked by the aristocracy, and that his rule was marked by impulsiveness. At the time the fire broke out in July of AD 64, Nero was reportedly not in the city at all but at his villa in Antium, some thirty-five miles away. He may have returned before the fire was fully extinguished.

  The rumor that he had ordered the fire deliberately, to clear space for a grand new palace called the Domus Aurea, circulated almost immediately. One of the six competing stories held that he watched the city burn from his palace on the Palatine Hill, singing and playing the lyre. This is the image that gave rise to the phrase about fiddling while Rome burns. Another version placed him at the Tower of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill while singing. A third version said only that there were unconfirmed rumors he sang from a private stage. None of those who allegedly acted under orders ever named who gave them.

• 4. How the Fire Moved

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  Tacitus, writing decades later, placed the origin of the fire in shops where flammable goods were stored, in the region of the Circus neighboring the Caelian and Palatine Hills. The night winds that drove the initial spread were a critical factor. Modern fire science has demonstrated that large fires can generate their own wind by pulling in surrounding air, and this mechanism, combined with embers carried to distant buildings, would explain reports of fires igniting in houses far from the main front.

  The lower areas of ancient Rome had no large temples or open ground to slow the advance of flames. Apartment blocks stood close together, and the streets between them twisted and narrowed. The fire moved along the full length of the Circus first, then climbed the Palatine and Caelian slopes. Residents fled first to areas of the city that were still untouched, then to open fields and roads outside the walls.

  Looters and arsonists were reported among the chaos. Some groups were said to be actively hindering firefighting efforts, throwing torches and blocking those trying to contain the blaze, and some of those individuals claimed to be acting under orders. They never identified who gave those orders, and the same witnesses were also reported to have looted buildings, which raises obvious questions about their reliability. After six days the fire stopped; then it reignited, burning for another three days before finally going out.

• 5. Blame and Persecution

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  With ten of fourteen districts damaged or destroyed, Nero needed to deflect mounting suspicion. According to Tacitus and later Christian tradition, he settled on the city's Christian community as the target. Christians, already unpopular in Rome, were identified, arrested, and killed. Some were torn apart by hunting dogs before spectators; others were crucified in ways calculated to look ridiculous. Jerome records that the total number of Christians killed in this persecution was 979.

  The logic attributed to Nero in one of the six competing stories is straightforward: since rumor already blamed him for the fire, pinning it on the Christians would redirect public anger onto a group people already distrusted. This represented the first organized imperial persecution of Christians in Roman history.

  The other explanations for the fire ranged from deliberate arson by Nero for political reasons, specifically to rebuild Rome in his image and bypass the senate, to a straightforward accident while he was in Antium. The primary accounts, which may have included histories by Fabius Rusticus, Marcus Cluvius Rufus, and Pliny the Elder, have not survived. What remains are three secondary sources: Cassius Dio, Suetonius, and Tacitus. Tacitus himself was only eight years old when the fire burned, and worked from public records and reports rather than personal memory.

• 6. Rebuilding an Empire's Capital

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  Nero's response to the destruction was, by any measure, extensive. He opened gardens and public buildings to house refugees and arranged food supplies. Of the fourteen districts, three were left completely devastated, seven were reduced to scorched ruins, and only four escaped entirely. The Temple of Jupiter Stator, the House of the Vestals, and Nero's own Domus Transitoria were among the structures damaged or destroyed.

  The new building rules Nero dictated after the fire were described as far-sighted. They were designed to curb speculative building and impose a more rational urban plan. That plan can still be traced in the layout of Rome today. Debris from the fire was used to fill the malaria-infested marshes nearby.

  The Domus Aurea, or Golden House, that replaced the Domus Transitoria became one of the most ostentatious structures of the ancient world. The complex extended roughly 2.5 square kilometers, taking in the Palatine Hill, the slopes of the Esquiline, and part of the Celio. Critics at the time pointed to the speed and ambition of this construction as evidence that Nero had wanted the fire. Historians have since noted that Nero could have requisitioned the land for such a palace without burning the city, and that much of the land was already in his possession.

  To fund all of this, Nero's government raised taxes sharply, imposing heavy tributes on the provinces. He also devalued the Roman currency. According to the sources, this devaluation increased inflationary pressure for the first time in the empire's history, a consequence that outlasted the fire itself by many years.