Rome Is Burning: Nero and the Fire that Ended a Dynasty

Nero fiddled as Rome burned. Or did he? This book analyzes the great Roman fire during the time of Nero and the impact on his reign. Nero was a fairly popular emperor among the common men. The wealthy did not respect him as much, especially after they had to pay to rebuild after the fire's destruction. He lost his empire 3 years after the fire. His reputation steadily moved downward. It is unclear if many of the atrocities attributed to him were accurate - most of them were written well after the fact. It seemed that many negative accounts may have been written as means to further bring down the reputation of the already dead leader.

Some later writers attributed the fire to Nero. Contemporaries generally did not. Nero did encourage post fire construction that was spaced further apart to decrease further blazes. He also set out a new grand architecture tradition in the rebuild. Fires had been a longstanding occurrence in Rome. The new changes helped to make them less destructive.