by Dave Franklin

Created on: January 14, 2008

The literal answer is that it would have been impossible for Nero to fiddle whilst Rome burned in 64AD, the reason being that fiddle wasn't invented until the fifteenth century. The other charge that is normally levelled at him is that he sang a song about the burning of Troy and that in order to do so he had set the fire himself. Although Nero is known to be a, shall we say, less than stable individual and capable of some strange and dangerous activities, in this instance he does have an alibi. At the time the fire broke out he was 35 miles away at his seaside holiday retreat and upon hearing the news raced back to the city to take personal charge of the fire fighting.

Nero had always stated that he wanted to undertake a major redevelopment of the city and it is probably from this commonly known fact that the conclusion was drawn that the fire was just stage one in his land clearing operation, prior to putting his new plans into action. It is unlikely that he was the culprit, though the real perpetrators were never discovered and it is more than likely that it was started accidentally. Nero, however, managed to put the blame on a small religious group whom he despised for their distinctly anti Roman forms of worship, that is, the Christians.

What we do know about Nero is this. He was a transvestite who was fond of acting in women's clothes, he sang, played music, like hosting orgies and had his mother killed. His choice of musical instrument seems to have been the kithara, a type of lyre, and also played the bagpipes. This is not as bizarre as it sounds, although the bagpipes is associated with medieval celtic culture it is a very ancient instrument. Procopius in the early sixth century noted that although the trumpet was used in cavalry unit's the bagpipe was common to Roman infantry.

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