Great Fire of Rome (AD 64): Nero and the Burning of the City

The Great Fire of Rome broke out on the night of 18–19 July AD 64 in shops near the Circus Maximus and spread across most of the city. It raged for about six days, then flared up again for about three more, leaving much of the capital of the Roman Empire in ruins. The disaster gave rise to the legend that Nero “fiddled while Rome burned” and led to the first recorded persecution of Christians by the Roman state.

Rome before the fire

In the 1st century AD Rome was the largest city in the Mediterranean world, with perhaps a million inhabitants. Most people lived in crowded apartment blocks called insulae, often several storeys high, built of timber and rubble and lining narrow, winding streets. Cooking fires, oil lamps and braziers made fire a constant danger.

Augustus had created a force of vigiles, a corps of watchmen and firefighters organised in seven cohorts, each covering two of the city’s fourteen districts. They had buckets, pumps, axes and blankets, and could pull down buildings to make firebreaks. Even so, major fires were common.

Nero, emperor since AD 54, was 26 years old in AD 64. He was popular with the urban crowd for his games and generosity but increasingly at odds with the Senate. He had a great passion for music, poetry and chariot racing, and had begun to perform in public, which shocked the Roman elite.

What happened

According to Tacitus, the fire started in shops selling flammable goods at the end of the Circus Maximus that faced the Palatine and Caelian Hills. Driven by wind, it raced along the length of the circus, where there were no walls or temples to stop it, and then up the hills and down into the valleys.

The fire spread faster than any attempt to fight it. Tacitus describes the panic: people trapped in narrow streets, families searching for one another, the old and the young unable to escape, and refugees fleeing to the countryside only to find the flames had overtaken them. Some, he says, chose to die rather than survive after losing everything.

After about six days the fire was finally stopped at the foot of the Esquiline Hill, where large numbers of buildings were demolished to create a wide break. Then it broke out again in the property of Tigellinus, the Praetorian prefect and a close adviser of Nero, and burned for about three more days in less crowded areas. This second outbreak fuelled suspicion that the fire had been started on purpose.

The scale of destruction

Tacitus gives the clearest summary. Of Rome’s fourteen districts, three were completely levelled, seven were reduced to a few scorched and broken walls, and only four were untouched. Ancient temples and monuments were lost, among them, according to tradition, the temple of Jupiter Stator and the house of Numa, together with countless works of art and ancient records.

Nero’s own palace, the Domus Transitoria, which linked the Palatine with the gardens on the Esquiline, was destroyed. The number of deaths was not recorded and is unknown. Tens of thousands of people, perhaps far more, were made homeless.

Nero’s response

Nero was at his villa at Antium (Anzio), about 50 km away, when the fire began. He returned to Rome only when the flames threatened his palace. Tacitus says he then acted energetically to help the victims.

He opened the Campus Martius, the public buildings of Agrippa and his own gardens to the homeless, and had temporary shelters built. Food was brought from Ostia and nearby towns, and the price of grain was cut to three sesterces per modius, a very low price. Nero also paid to clear debris and offered rewards to those who completed new buildings quickly.

The rumour about Nero

Despite this relief work, a damaging rumour spread. Tacitus reports that, while the city burned, Nero was said to have gone onto a private stage and sung of the destruction of Troy, comparing the present disaster with ancient tragedy. Tacitus presents this as a story people told, not as established fact.

Suetonius and Cassius Dio, writing later, went further. They state that Nero deliberately set the fire, either to clear space for a new palace or for the spectacle, and that he watched and sang as it burned. They also claim his agents prevented people from fighting the flames and were seen spreading the fire with torches.

These accounts must be read with care. Tacitus was a boy of about eight at the time of the fire, and he wrote some fifty years later; Suetonius and Dio wrote later still. All three drew on earlier histories, now lost, that were written after Nero’s fall by authors hostile to his memory. Pliny the Elder, who lived through the fire, also blamed Nero in a passing remark, which shows how early the accusation circulated.

Modern historians are generally sceptical. Fires were common in Rome, especially in summer. Nero was away when it began, and the fire destroyed his own palace and its treasures. Men seen spreading flames may have been looters or firefighters creating breaks. The fact that Nero later built a lavish palace on the cleared land made him look guilty, but it does not prove that he planned the disaster.

The persecution of Christians

To end the rumours, Tacitus says, Nero found scapegoats: the Christians, a group “hated for their abominations” in popular opinion. Those who confessed to being Christians were arrested, and on their information what Tacitus calls a huge number were convicted, less for arson than for “hatred of the human race”.

The punishments were deliberately cruel. Some victims were dressed in animal skins and torn apart by dogs; others were crucified or set alight to serve as torches at night. Nero offered his own gardens on the Vatican for the spectacle. Tacitus, who disliked the Christians, notes that the cruelty aroused pity even among Romans.

This passage of Tacitus is the earliest non-Christian reference to Christians at Rome, and it mentions the execution of “Christus” under Pontius Pilate. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome under Nero, though the ancient sources do not tie their deaths directly to the fire. Later Roman attitudes to the Christians can be followed in the letters of Pliny and Trajan.

Rebuilding Rome

Nero rebuilt the city to a new plan. Tacitus describes the rules: streets were made wider and straighter, the height of buildings was limited, open courtyards were required, and porticoes were added along apartment fronts to help fight fires. Parts of buildings had to be made of fire-resistant stone from Gabii or the Alban Hills, shared walls were banned, and every household had to keep firefighting equipment at hand. Water supplies were better controlled so that more was available for public use.

Nero also seized a large area in the centre of the city for his new palace, the Domus Aurea, or Golden House, with parks and an artificial lake. Many Romans resented this luxury rising from the ashes of their homes.

Paying for the rebuilding strained the treasury. Provinces and cities were made to contribute, temples were stripped of treasures, and around AD 64 the silver and gold content of Roman coins was reduced. Discontent among the elite fed the Pisonian conspiracy of AD 65, which failed but foreshadowed Nero’s fall.

Myths and facts

• “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” The fiddle was invented many centuries later. The rumour in Tacitus involves singing, probably to the lyre, and even then it is presented as gossip.
• “Nero started the fire.” This is asserted by Suetonius and Dio but doubted by Tacitus and by most modern scholars. The question cannot be settled with the evidence available.
• “The whole city burned.” Four of the fourteen districts escaped entirely, and some others were only partly damaged.
• A curious coincidence. Tacitus notes that some people observed the fire began on the same day of the year as the burning of Rome by the Gauls, traditionally dated to 390 BC.

Timeline

• AD 54: Nero becomes emperor at the age of 16.
• 18–19 July AD 64: Fire breaks out near the Circus Maximus.
• About 24 July AD 64: The fire is halted at the foot of the Esquiline, then flares up again in Tigellinus’s property.
• Late July AD 64: The fire finally dies out after about three more days.
• Late AD 64: Christians are arrested and executed as scapegoats.
• From AD 64: Rome is rebuilt under new rules and work begins on the Domus Aurea.
• AD 65: The Pisonian conspiracy against Nero is discovered.
• AD 68: Nero is overthrown and dies (see the death of Nero).

Why it matters

The Great Fire of AD 64 reshaped the physical city of Rome, introduced some of the ancient world’s best-documented building regulations and created one of history’s most enduring images of a ruler’s indifference. It also marked the first clash between the Roman state and Christianity, an episode that became central to Christian memory of persecution and martyrdom.