THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME

Annals

Tacitus

Translated by J. C. Yardley, 2008

Every schoolchild knows that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. But did he? The historian Tacitus records that the emperor was away from the city when the fire actually broke out in AD 64. He also notes the ease with which rumours of Nero’s behaviour spread after the conflagration had taken hold. Tacitus’ younger contemporary Suetonius (see Story 70) suggested that Nero so despised Rome’s old buildings and narrow streets that he decided to burn them down. To deflect blame for the disaster from himself, said Tacitus, Nero pointed his finger at the Christians, whom he proceeded to persecute. Despite writing over half a century after the events, Tacitus captured perfectly in his description the sense of panic and displacement that the fire must have inspired in the people of Rome.

It started in the part of the Circus adjacent to the Palatine and Caelian hills. There, amidst shops containing merchandise of a combustible nature, the fire immediately gained strength as soon as it broke out and, whipped up by the wind, engulfed the entire length of the Circus. For there were no dwellings with solid enclosures, no temples ringed with walls, and no other obstacle of any kind in its way. The blaze spread wildly, overrunning the flat areas first, and then climbing to the heights before once again ravaging the lower sections. It outstripped all defensive measures because of the speed of its deadly advance and the vulnerability of the city, with its narrow streets twisting this way and that, and with its irregular blocks of buildings, which was the nature of old Rome.

In addition, there was the wailing of panic-stricken women; there were people, very old and very young; there were those trying to save themselves and those trying to save others, dragging invalids along or waiting for them; and these people, some hanging back, some rushing along, hindered all relief efforts. And often, as they looked back, they found themselves under attack from the flames at their sides or in front; or if they got away to a neighbouring district, that also caught fire, and even those areas they had believed far distant they found to be in the same plight. Eventually, unsure what to avoid and what to head for, they crowded the roads or scattered over the fields. Even though escape lay open to them, some chose death because they had lost all their property, even their daily livelihood; others did so from love of family members whom they had been unable to rescue. And nobody dared fight the fire: there were repeated threats from numerous people opposing efforts to extinguish it, and others openly hurled in firebrands and yelled that they ‘had their instructions’. This was to give them more freedom to loot, or else they were in fact under orders.