Posted on 12/10/2001 6:16:55 AM PST by H.R. Gross
THE Roman emperor Nero, a byword for cruelty and excess, has been falsely blamed for burning down Rome by propagandists covering up for Christian and Jewish saboteurs, according to new research. The fire, which destroyed most of the ancient city in AD64, has traditionally been blamed on a plot by Nero to destroy his opponents. However, Gerhard Baudy, professor of antiquities at Konstanz University in Bavaria, claims the fire was part of a revolt to overthrow the Roman empire by a group who believed they were fulfilling divine prophecies. “It was highly unlikely this fire was an accident,” said Baudy. “Expectations of the prophecy were so high among the people that it had to be a deliberate act. The Christians hated Rome and believed in prophecies that Jesus Christ would test the good and destroy the evil in a cataclysmic fire.” The theory has divided classical experts. Some believe the fire was an accident caused by hot summer weather and strong winds, others accuse Nero of ordering arson so he could rebuild the capital to his own designs. Legend has it that Nero — who married and then arranged the murder of his stepsister Octavia and who roasted Christians for pleasure — fiddled while Rome burnt, as portrayed by Charles Laughton in the 1932 film The Sign of the Cross. Despite his reputation, Nero did not immediately seem a tyrant when he succeeded his stepfather Claudius in AD54 at the age of 17. He even won praise for his tax reforms. Later, however, he broke away from the influence of older advisers and his mother Agrippina, who was also killed, probably at Nero’s instigation. Freed from family constraints, his self-indulgence came into the open. He built palaces, arranged extravagant orgies and forced Romans to listen to him reciting poems and performing at the theatre. He went on night-time outings to mug citizens. This behaviour nauseated the soldierly aristocrats of Rome, who aspired to the puritanical ideals of the republic that their families had controlled before the Caesars took over. Their attitude is thought to have given rise to the stories that Nero tried to burn opponents out of central Rome. In a programme about the fire to be broadcast on Channel 4 tomorrow, Baudy says this was an invention of later, more pro-Christian writers. Instead, he says, the disaffected Christians and Jews of the capital had been stirred up by pamphlets, some of which forecast that the world would end in a conflagration on July 19. This was taken as a signal to strike. The blaze burnt for nine days despite attempts to stop it with trenches filled with water as firebreaks. Ten of the 14 districts in the city were destroyed. Nero was quick to blame the Christians. Some 200-300 of the 3,000 then living in Rome were put to death. According to Tacitus, the Roman historian, many were trussed up, covered in tar and used as human torches to light the way for the insomniac Nero during night strolls in his hillside garden. Nero’s excesses produced successive plots and resulting executions. In AD68, with much of the empire in revolt and troops marching on the capital, he committed suicide, reputedly saying: “What an artist dies in me.”
Let me guess -- it was all about sex, and it was a vast right-wing conspiracy that has led us to believe that Nero burned down Rome.
So, where is the research ?
Revisionist rubbish.
Nah, his reputation as a tyrant isn't justified...yeah right.
until i read this post i was completely against the hypothesis of re-incarnation. this gets one thinking...
BREAKING NEWS
I hear there is a petition before the Govenor to pardon him.
It's hard to rule out an accidental fire. Fire and pestilence were the main fears of the Roman city fathers; that's why so much water. Nero did rebuild much of the burned stuff. He also was a tyrant but he didn't kill anyone in the Coliseum.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Got to have somebody to blame, don't they?
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