The Great Burning of Rome
by On July 19, 64 AD, the same date four and a half centuries earlier when the Gauls set fire to Rome, a fire broke out near the Circus Maximus and quickly spread all over the city of Rome. Large numbers of people lived in timber-framed tenements and, in the warmer weather of July, these readily provided the needed fuel for a fire. Over a period of six days, and then after a short lull, bursting into flames again for a further three days, the flames destroyed 70 percent of the city.
Many of the most important buildings were destroyed and thousands lost their lives. One archeologist, examining the ground twenty feet below present levels, found nails that were partly melted by the heat before they fell from burning timber. Coins too were found in the same area, remnants of the possessions of the hapless victims that could not escape the fire.
The aristocrats lived on the higher ground of Rome and once a few tenements were ablaze, firestorms swept upward to higher and higher ground and burned their mansions. Experiments by archeologists trying to reconstruct the scene from 64 discovered that temperatures quickly rose beyond a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This level of heat readily creates a vortex of swirling flames that reach higher and higher in order to find oxygen, to places like Capitoline Hill where the larger homes were. Attempts to put out the fire were hampered by the terrified cries of the many people who had nowhere to go. The speed of the flames soon caught up with them as they ran away from burning buildings. The emperor, Nero, was away in the eastern part of the empire at this time and he quickly returned as soon as news of the tragedy reached him.
Emperor Nero opened the Field of Mars and the Vatican Gardens to refugees and arranged food and shelter for them. Supplies were brought in from neighboring towns and the price of corn was cut back for a time to a small fraction of its normal price. Roman society attached great importance to anniversaries of any kind and on this occasion, because it was such a vivid reminder of the earlier malicious attack by the Gauls, the people wondered if this, the worst fire in the history of the city, was an omen of good or a harbinger of evil. In spite of his generosity to survivors, it was not long before rumors began to circulate that Nero was responsible for all that had happened. Had he started the fire, people asked, in order to make space for another building he wanted to erect? This kind of thinking was typical of the times. When news was good the ruler is praised. When a disaster occurs, the ruler is blamed. Furthermore, it was generally known that Nero had grandiose ideas about the city, wanting to demolish the older tenements in favor of elegant buildings that fitted the greatness of Rome.
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