Nero playing Lyre, As - Museum Gallery

Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, adoped son of Claudius in A.D.50. An unpopular emperor (A.D. 54-68) due to his excesses and vanity. Everyone has heard the story that Nero 'fiddled' while Rome burned; he was enthusiastic about art & music, but his instrument was the lyre, not the fiddle (which didn't exist then). It was also rumored that he had the fires set to clear out a section of slums upon which he wanted to start a building project.
A Graecophile and pasionate devotee of the arts, Nero regarded himself as an accomplished musician and singer as well as a poet. The type of Apollo Citharoedus is doubtless inetended to flatter this aspect of the emperor's character.
Michael Grant wrote "It is only too painfully probable that this author of an epic on the Fall of Troy sang it, and fiddled while Rome burnt; the appropriately lurid backround must have been irresistible."
OB: NERO CLAVD CAESAR GERMANICVS; bare head right; RX: PONTIF MAX TR POT IMP PP; Nero as Apollo standing r., playing lyre! Lugdunum mint ~A.D. 65; this type refers to Nero's victory in the lyre contest of the Neronia. This coin is also mentioned in Suetonius "The Twelve Ceasars" (Nero 25). While he loved the adulation I do not think it caused arousal as the reverse might indicate, I believe it is a hem on his toga. 11 gm, 28mm. RIC416, VM 31.
Read more the Great Fire: The Great Fire of Rome, erupted on the night of July 18 to July 19, 64. The fire started at the southeastern end of the Circus Maximus in shops selling flammable goods.
The actual size of the fire is the subject of some debate. According to Tacitus, who was nine years old at the time of the fire, it spread quickly and burnt for five days. It completely destroyed four of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaged seven.The only other historian who lived through the period and mentioned the fire is Pliny the Elder who wrote about it in passing. Other historians who lived through the period (including Josephus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Epictetus) make no mention of it. The only other account on the size of fire is an interpolation in a forged Christian letter from Seneca to Paul: "A hundred and thirty-two houses and four blocks have been burnt in six days; the seventh brought a pause". This account implies less than a tenth of the city was burnt. Rome contained about 1,700 private houses and 47,000 apartment blocks.
It was said by Suetonius and Cassius Dio that Nero sang the "Sack of Ilium" in stage costume while the city burned. However, Tacitus' account has Nero in Antium at the time of the fire. Tacitus said that Nero playing his lyre and singing while the city burned was only rumor. Popular legend remembers Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned, but this is an anachronism as the instrument had not yet been invented, and would not be for over 1,000 years.
According to Tacitus, upon hearing news of the fire, Nero rushed back to Rome to organize a relief effort, which he paid for from his own funds. After the fire, Nero opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors. In the wake of the fire, he made a new urban development plan. Houses after the fire were spaced out, built in brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads.Nero also built a new palace complex known as the Domus Aurea in an area cleared by the fire. The size of this complex is debated (from 100 to 300 acres).[To find the necessary funds for the reconstruction, tributes were imposed on the provinces of the empire.
It is uncertain who or what actually caused the fire— whether accident or arson. According to Tacitus, some in the population held Nero responsible. To diffuse blame, Nero targeted the Christians. Christians confessed to the crime, but it is unknown if these were false confessions induced by torture. Also, the passage is unclear what the Christians confessed to— whether arson or being Christians. Suetonius and Cassius Dio favor Nero as the arsonist with an insane desire to destroy the city as his motive. However, major accidentally started fires were common in ancient Rome. In fact, Rome burned again under Vitellius in 69 and under Titus in 80.
Nero ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs, while others were crucified or burned to serve as lights.
Tacitus described the event:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.