Did Nero start the Great Fire of Rome?

[@tribunateSPQR]

What do you believe was the most far-reaching effect of the great fire?

[@Skibbityboo0580]

I think it ended up popularizing Christianity in a backwards kind of way. Christians were just one of many weird little cults, and he put them on center stage, and I am sure it made a lot of people curious as to who the folks were, and what they believe. And when they find out that in this cult it did not matter that you were poor, or sinful, one had a path to heaven.

[@tribunateSPQR]

@@Skibbityboo0580 Even some Christians may agree with this - it was the church father Tertullian who said "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"

[@StanGB]

It cleared the space that would eventually become the Colosseum (after a brief interlude as Nero's Golden House)

[@antonivsfortis]

"Greek fire can't melt marble beams"

[@beepbop6542]

So several of the attackers' bibles just so HAPPENED to be found in the rubble, in perfect condition? Despite the massive fire?

[@Ambition69]

I recently purchased a Prutah that was minted during Nero's reign. Very high chance it went through this very fire.

[@tribunateSPQR]

It's amazing to hold history in your hands like this and wonder who else has touched the object. No matter how fascinating the stories we attach to these items in our imagination, the reality is probably more interesting

[@jtgd]

Hopefully modern construction materials won’t cause mass fires….

[@steadyjumper3547]

Hi from California where it’s like yearly firestorms

[@kalielsouza9136]

​@@steadyjumper3547same in Brazil. Where is the Australian guy?

[@joaopedrogameiro1408]

These videos are so well made and so thought provoking! You guys should have millions of views!!

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thank you! Comments like yours really do help us reach new viewers!

[@TobyTubeS]

Great video - interesting to hear this perspective

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thanks!

[@vikingodin1986]

Another very enjoyed video ..

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thank you!

[@kevinmcqueenie7420]

I wish the Chronovisor allegedly held in the Vatican Secret Archives was real. Imagine being able to look back at events like this as they actually happened!

[@tribunateSPQR]

I wish that was real, it would make my job much easier!

[@StanGB]

Great video - was interesting to learn that the fire may have been spread by embers and heat

[@tribunateSPQR]

Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, this was probably why some believed the fire was a result of arson

[@edwardmiessner6502]

@@tribunateSPQR I think there was arson but it got out of control and became a firestorm, like just recently in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.

[@jtgd]

Nightmarish to try and flee the fire in the biggest city in the world, and it just catches up FOR 6 DAYS I’d feel the need to either rebuild, or find a few city

[@tribunateSPQR]

It’s such a horrifying episode from history, you almost understand why people wanted a scapegoat so badly

[@edwardmiessner6502]

If I were Nero I would have declared the city jinxed and relocated Rome to its port, Ostia.

[@andychap6283]

Love this channel

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thank you!!

[@NathanDudani]

Reminds me of the 1660s fire in London

[@tribunateSPQR]

They are quite similar. For both fires, the construction of firebreaks was the only way to combat them

[@edwardmiessner6502]

@@tribunateSPQR That's why in a city for firebreaks you need 100 foot wide boulevards. One reason why Haussmann carved up and regenerated Paris.

[@joeyates3909]

very interesting, I had always followed the thought that it was to do with Neros obsession with theatre that caused him to induce a fire that would also make him the protagonist in his own great play

[@tribunateSPQR]

Nero was crazy, but he wasn't THAT crazy - at least not yet

[@edwardmiessner6502]

I remember reading in the previous chapter of Tacitus' Annales of arsonists with torches claiming that they were working for a boss who ordered the arson. And the end of the quoted chapter indicates that Tacitus thought the Christians - or rather _Chréstians_ according to manuscript evidence - were criminals who deserved exemplary punishment. So we have Chréstians burning down Rome, no doubt impelled by none other than Paul, who lived for two years in his private rented house! Now the question is: qui bono? Certainly not the Chréstians and certainly not Paul who either was "martyred" (executed for his role) in Rome or quietly slipped off to Spain in the chaos. No doubt in my mind that it was real estate speculators who benefited from the fire. I suspect they got wind of Nero's planned Domus Aurea and wanted to profit from it by buying destroyed property cheap and selling it to Nero and others at a profit, or rebuilding to let. And so they met with Paul... More on this in Francesco Carotta's _Was Jesus Caesar?_

[@spicydaddy2526]

good shit

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thanks so much!

[@GilTheDragon]

10:05 papist gluttony... wait no wrong great fire...

[@f1nalgambit381]

Love the videos!

[@tribunateSPQR]

Thank you so much! Glad you find them informative and useful

[@MatthewChenault]

To give myself an idea of what Rome would have looked like after it had burned, I refer to images of what Richmond looked like on April 3rd, 1865 after a quarter of the city had been burned down. A lot of the buildings in Rome would have been a mix of wooden and brick buildings, which would have caught on fire easily and spread rapidly. Those brick structures would likely have collapsed, blocking streets and alleyways with debris while leaving only smoldering ruins in its wake.

[@tribunateSPQR]

Great visual aid, it would have been incredibly haunting to walk through the remains of the city

[@edwardmiessner6502]

Likewise the Chicago fire of 1871 or the Boston fire of 1872.

[@청솔향-g9u]

Even if he didn't start it, he would have been a bystander enough to take advantage of its benefits. To the point of building a huge palace on the site of the citizens' burned homes... and his own statue covered in gold...

[@marcusupshaw829]

The truth is historians don’t know for sure if Nero was even in Rome when that fire started. It is an uncertainty

[@tribunateSPQR]

So many unanswered questions

[@johnmurdoch8534]

Nero was actually not a bad emperor despite the hate the senate had for him .one fijds this with many of the maligned emperors..like domitian too. The people loved them but the people didnt write the histories.

[@rustomkanishka]

Nero had it coming.

[@tribunateSPQR]

Did he ever

[@danlhendl]

Of course not. Christian candles did it…or a Jew smoking a cigarette or plain old Plebeian pyromania

[@josh656]

Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams

[@robertcampbell3019]

They clearly did tho

[@josh656]

@@robertcampbell3019 “The only reason to believe the official narrative of 9/11 is that you were too lazy to do 15 minutes of your own research.”