Roman Fire of 64AD

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-21-2006, 15:30

What do you think about the fire? Did Nero intentionaly set it so that he could make his 200 acre villa?

**lars573** · 04-21-2006, 23:58

A bunch of Christians crazies with torches is my pet theory.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-22-2006, 03:10

Originally Posted by lars573

A bunch of Christians crazies with torches is my pet theory.

Yeah, that's who he blamed it on. He had many crusified. Christians were his scapegoat in my opinion

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 04-22-2006, 23:17

I think he certainly could have stated the fire, he was insane enough by that point. Whether he did or not is another matter.

**lars573** · 04-22-2006, 23:24

In a Nat-Geo documentary about the fire they made a decent case for Nero being on the mark about blaming Christians. Now he blamed all Christians and fed them to the lions accordingly. I feel that it was just a small cabal of crazies with tourches.

1.Nero was at his country villaand raced back to Rome and sent the Praetorians to help fight the fire and directed the efforts.
-If he wanted Rome to burn he would have been "un-avoidably delayed" until the fire was over.
2.Tacitus is not a good soruce for anything about Nero's reign.
-Tacitus went out of his way to make Nero look bad. As he hated him. And we know more about how fire can behave than the Romans did.
3.Early Christian groups (I won't paint them as one group) though that the Roman empire was the 7 headed whore of Babylon spoken of in Revelations. And that distroying the city would destroy the empire and thus bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-22-2006, 23:39

Originally Posted by lars573

In a Nat-Geo documentary about the fire they made a decent case for Nero being on the mark about blaming Christians. Now he blamed all Christians and fed them to the lions accordingly. I feel that it was just a small cabal of crazies with tourches.

1.Nero was at his country villaand raced back to Rome and sent the Praetorians to help fight the fire and directed the efforts.
-If he wanted Rome to burn he would have been "un-avoidably delayed" until the fire was over.
2.Tacitus is not a good soruce for anything about Nero's reign.
-Tacitus went out of his way to make Nero look bad. As he hated him. And we know more about how fire can behave than the Romans did.
3.Early Christian groups (I won't paint them as one group) though that the Roman empire was the 7 headed whore of Babylon spoken of in Revelations. And that distroying the city would destroy the empire and thus bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Interesting theory. Get's me thinking...

**lars573** · 04-23-2006, 04:20

Originally Posted by Alexanderofmacedon

Interesting theory. Get's me thinking...

Which were my thoughs. Plus I'd seen another doc about Nero. It's premise was that he was never crazy. But that he never wanted to be emperor in the first place. His mother forced him onto the throne (practically at sword point). And used him as her puppet to rule. That most of his violent actions were him lashing out at the world in frustration. Then he eventually did kill his mother things went down hill.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-23-2006, 15:10

Originally Posted by lars573

Which were my thoughs. Plus I'd seen another doc about Nero. It's premise was that he was never crazy. But that he never wanted to be emperor in the first place. His mother forced him onto the throne (practically at sword point). And used him as her puppet to rule. That most of his violent actions were him lashing out at the world in frustration. Then he eventually did kill his mother things went down hill.

He saw images of her after he killed her. It was something like four months after his villa downtown was finished, he was chased after and commited suiside.

**rotorgun** · 04-23-2006, 19:04

An interesting thing about the areas that were burned is that these were also areas that Nero did some major construction, as in a huge palace, during the post fire years. There are some who think that he arranged for the fires to be started in some of the poorer sections of Rome to make way for his building projects. He rather conveniently blamed the unpopular Christian sects for the blaze to divert scrutiny of his possible involvement. I guess he didn't have a hurricane Katrina to blame it on, so he chose the next best thing.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 04-23-2006, 19:12

Rotor: Read my first post

Yes, he built a 200 acre villa on the downtown land where the fire burned. Bled the provinces dry for the money to make it. Everything laced in gold with jewels everywhere. His own vineyard and animal pastures.

Greedy FOOLS!

**Red Peasant** · 04-23-2006, 20:03

IMO the fire was most probably accidental, but the Romans loved a conspiracy theory as much as we do, and they needed scapegoats as much as we do.

The fire also burned down much of the palace complex that Nero had already built, so if he was just targetting the poor then he didn't make a very good job of it.

**rotorgun** · 04-24-2006, 17:55

Originally Posted by Red Peasant

IMO the fire was most probably accidental, but the Romans loved a conspiracy theory as much as we do, and they needed scapegoats as much as we do.

The fire also burned down much of the palace complex that Nero had already built, so if he was just targetting the poor then he didn't make a very good job of it.

Yes, your probably right (chuckling a bit), I am as guilty as anyone. I like a good conspiracy theory as well.

**Kraxis** · 04-25-2006, 22:32

Originally Posted by Alexanderofmacedon

Rotor: Read my first post

Yes, he built a 200 acre villa on the downtown land where the fire burned. Bled the provinces dry for the money to make it. Everything laced in gold with jewels everywhere. His own vineyard and animal pastures.

Greedy FOOLS!

And built a massive statue of himself as Apollo the sungod. Think of what giant statues were called, and connect that to a very important building we can still visit to this day.

Get back to me here in this thread what I'm thinking of.