Did Nero really play the fiddle while Rome burned?
For six days and seven nights the citizens of ancient Rome watched helplessly as their city burned. The great fire that consumed Rome in A.D. 64 spread quickly and savagely. After it was over, 70 percent of the city had been destroyed. “Of Rome’s 14 districts, only four remained intact. Three were leveled to the ground. The other seven were reduced to a few scorched and mangled ruins,” writes the contemporary Roman historian Tacitus. Of the million-person population, an estimated half was made newly homeless by the fire [
