Ancient Rome · 54–69 CE

Did Nero Start the Great Fire of Rome?

By the Aurelius editorial team · 3 min read · Updated 15 October 2026

In short

  • Nero came to power at sixteen, turned to murder and the stage, and saw the Great Fire of 64 wreck ten of Rome's fourteen districts.
  • Nero blamed the Christians and built a Golden House; Tacitus reports the story that he sang while Rome burned only as a rumour.
  • Revolt by provincial governors ended his rule in 68, and in 69 four emperors followed.
Marble head of a man with a fleshy face, heavy jaw, short side-whiskers and carefully curled hair combed forward over the forehead.
Marble bust of Nero in the Capitoline Museums, Rome: only a fragment of the face is ancient; the rest is a skilful 17th-century restoration, carved to match the heavy jaw and rows of curls of Nero's later portraits. khs1959 · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

Last time: Augustus built a monarchy behind republican forms and died in 14 CE. Three members of his family ruled after him, and in 54 a sixteen-year-old named Nero became the fourth.

On 19 July 64 CE, flames broke out among the shops beside the Circus Maximus. The emperor Nero was at Antium on the coast, some thirty-five miles away, and before the ashes cooled Romans were whispering that he had wanted the city to burn.

A boy emperor

Nero was born in 37 CE and became emperor in October 54, when the Praetorian Guard acclaimed him after the death of his great-uncle and adoptive father, Claudius. Ancient writers say Nero's mother Agrippina poisoned Claudius, but no one can prove it. For his first years his tutor Seneca and the guard prefect Burrus guided affairs, and the Senate was content.

Then Nero turned on his family. In 59 he had Agrippina killed, after a collapsing boat meant to drown her had failed. He preferred the stage and the racetrack to the Senate, and Roman aristocrats were scandalised when, from 64, an emperor sang in public.

Marble relief of a young man in Roman armour and cloak beside a woman in a long robe holding a horn of fruit, who reaches over to place a wreath on his head.
Agrippina crowns her young son Nero with a laurel wreath: marble relief from the Sebasteion, a temple to the emperors at Aphrodisias (in modern Turkey), marking his accession as emperor in 54 CE. Aphrodisias Museum. Carole Raddato · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Days of fire

The blaze of July 64 spread through the narrow, winding streets of old Rome. Tacitus says it burned for five days before firebreaks stopped it at the foot of the Esquiline, then flared up again. Of Rome's fourteen districts, three were levelled and seven reduced to a few scorched ruins; only four escaped.

Nero returned to the city, opened the Campus Martius and his own gardens to the homeless, brought in food from Ostia and cut the price of grain. Tacitus says the goodwill was wasted, because a rumour held that while the city burned, Nero sang about the fall of Troy. The picture of him fiddling is a much later invention: the violin did not exist until the 16th century.

Painting of a stone bridge and a columned temple in darkness, with flames raging beyond a great arch and small figures fleeing in the foreground.
Hubert Robert, The Fire of Rome, late 18th century, MuMa, Le Havre: a French painter's imagining of the blaze of 64 CE, painted some seventeen centuries later. Hubert Robert · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Blame, and a golden palace

Was the fire an accident or Nero's doing? Tacitus says earlier writers gave both versions, and modern historians still cannot decide. To kill the rumour, Nero blamed the Christians of Rome, an unpopular sect, and had many of them put to death. Tacitus, who despised them, reports that their cruel deaths roused pity even so.

Nero then rebuilt. New rules required broad, straight streets, limits on building height, and lower storeys of fireproof stone with no wooden beams. On the cleared land he built the Domus Aurea, the Golden House, a vast palace with parkland and an artificial lake. The biographer Suetonius reports Nero saying he could at last live like a human being.

Curved ceiling of an underground Roman room painted with faded red and cream panels framing a central roundel, with darker unpainted plaster around it.
A painted vaulted room in the Domus Aurea (Golden House of Nero), Rome, begun after 64 CE; the buried halls were rediscovered in the 15th century and inspired Renaissance painters. Davide Mauro · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Conspiracy and revolt

Resentment grew. In 65 a plot to replace Nero with the senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso was betrayed, and many were executed or exiled, among them Seneca, who was ordered to kill himself. In 66–67 Nero toured Greece, competing in its great festivals and collecting victory crowns.

In March 68 Vindex, governor of a province in Gaul, rose in revolt. Vindex was defeated, but Galba, governor of a province in Spain, took up the cause. The Praetorians deserted Nero and the Senate declared him a public enemy. In June 68 he killed himself at a freedman's villa outside Rome, with help from his secretary. Suetonius, in J. C. Rolfe's translation, says that as his grave was dug Nero wept and said again and again, “What an artist the world is losing!”

Dark bronze coin showing the front of a two-storey columned building with a domed top and a statue in its central doorway, with the letters MAC and AVG on either side.
Reverse of a bronze sestertius of Nero, minted in the mid-60s CE: the Macellum Magnum, the great market he built on the Caelian Hill, with its domed centre and two-storey wings; the letters MAC AVG name it. HJunghans · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Four emperors in a year

Nero left no heir, and the family of Augustus ended with him. His fall, Tacitus later wrote, revealed the secret of empire: an emperor could be made elsewhere than in Rome. In 69 four men held the throne. Galba was murdered by the Praetorians in January. Otho killed himself in April after his army lost to the forces of Vitellius, governor of Lower Germany on the Rhine. In December troops loyal to Vespasian took Rome, and Vitellius was dragged through the streets and killed.

Vespasian, commanding the war in Judaea, had been proclaimed emperor by the legions of Egypt on 1 July and by his own army in Judaea two days later. Vespasian founded a new dynasty, the Flavians, and drained the lake of Nero's palace to build the Colosseum on the site.

Tiers of arched openings and a solid, weathered top storey in a vast curved stone wall, seen from below against a clear blue sky.
The Colosseum, Rome, begun under Vespasian in the 70s CE and opened by Titus in 80 CE on land that had belonged to Nero's Golden House. Lianguanlun · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

In their own words

“A rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.”

Tacitus, Annals 15.39, c. 115–120 CE

Translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1876); the wording matches their text as reprinted by Perseus (Random House, 1942). Tacitus writes half a century after the fire and reports the Troy story only as a rumour; Suetonius and Cassius Dio later state it as fact.

Why it happened

  • Augustus's system gave one man supreme power but no rule for succession or removal.
  • Nero alienated the Senate and the army with his extravagance, executions and public performances.
  • Provincial governors commanded legions and were close enough to Rome to threaten it.

What happened next

  • Rome was rebuilt with fire regulations and wider streets, and a vast part of the city centre passed into imperial hands.
  • Four emperors fought for the throne in 69 CE, and Vespasian's victory brought a new dynasty.
  • Vespasian's son Titus was emperor in 79, when Vesuvius buried Pompeii. Read the story →

Why it still matters

The Colosseum was built on the site of Nero's artificial lake. Its name is medieval, and one common explanation links it to the Colossus, a giant bronze statue first made for Nero's palace and later moved beside the amphitheatre. When tourists queue to enter it, they are standing on land the Flavians reclaimed from Nero's palace.

Key people

Nero
Last emperor of the family of Augustus; ruled 54–68 CE
Seneca
Philosopher and Nero's tutor and adviser, ordered to die in 65
Agrippina the Younger
Nero's mother, killed on his orders in 59
Vespasian
General who won the civil wars of 69 and founded the Flavian dynasty

Key terms

Praetorian Guard
The emperor's household troops in Rome, whose loyalty could make or unmake emperors.
Domus Aurea
“Golden House”, Nero's vast palace and parkland built on the burned centre of Rome.
Flavians
The dynasty of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, which ruled from 69 to 96 CE.
Year of the Four Emperors
69 CE, when Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian each held the throne.

Test yourself

What does Tacitus say about the story that Nero sang while Rome burned?

  1. It was a rumour that spread through the city
  2. It was confirmed by Seneca
  3. It came from Nero's own diary
  4. It was invented by the Christians
Show the answer

It was a rumour that spread through the city. Tacitus reports it as a rumour. Suetonius and Cassius Dio later tell it as fact. Nero played the lyre; the violin did not exist, so he cannot have fiddled.

The full lesson in the app ends with 5 questions like this one.

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Frequently asked questions

Why did Nero fall from power?

Augustus's system gave one man supreme power but no rule for succession or removal. Nero alienated the Senate and the army with his extravagance, executions and public performances. Provincial governors commanded legions and were close enough to Rome to threaten it.

What happened after the Great Fire and Nero's death?

Rome was rebuilt with fire regulations and wider streets, and a vast part of the city centre passed into imperial hands. Four emperors fought for the throne in 69 CE, and Vespasian's victory brought a new dynasty. Vespasian's son Titus was emperor in 79, when Vesuvius buried Pompeii.

What does Tacitus say about the story that Nero sang while Rome burned?

It was a rumour that spread through the city. Tacitus reports it as a rumour. Suetonius and Cassius Dio later tell it as fact. Nero played the lyre; the violin did not exist, so he cannot have fiddled.

What is the main primary source for “Nero, the Great Fire and the Year of Four Emperors”?

Tacitus, Annals 15.39 (c. 115–120 CE). Translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1876); the wording matches their text as reprinted by Perseus (Random House, 1942). Tacitus writes half a century after the fire and reports the Troy story only as a rumour; Suetonius and Cassius Dio later state it as fact.

Sources

  • Tacitus, Annals 14–15, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1876)
  • Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars: Nero and Galba–Vitellius, translated by J. C. Rolfe (Loeb, 1914)
  • Edward Champlin, Nero (2003)
  • Miriam T. Griffin, Nero: The End of a Dynasty (1984)

Images are credited under each picture. Paintings and photographs come from public collections via Wikimedia Commons; scenes with no surviving image are marked as illustrations.