It may sound familiar: a disruptive leader who criticizes his predecessor and is at odds with lawmakers, an economy in trouble, an inner circle gripped by gossip and back-stabbing, and a sudden catastrophic crisis which comes to define his time in office.
Nero, who reigned from 54AD to 68AD is in the history books more than almost any other emperor, perhaps because of the turbulence of his time leading the Roman Empire, but also possibly because of something Donald Trump rails against: fake news.
The ‘known’ historical facts about him come broadly from three Roman historians, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Tacitus, all of whom painted him as corrupt and damaging to the empire.
Was his liar written about by a liar? Nero may not have exactly fiddled while Rome burned. The claim was written by a historian who painted him as corrupt
Suetonius, who was born around the time of Nero’s death, was the origin of the claim translated into everyday language as ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’
‘Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans laetusque flammae, ut aiebat, pulchritudine Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit,’ he wrote.
Translations vary; more modern translations tend to say that he ‘sang’ his own song about the fall of Troy rather than played a musical instrument, but decantavit could also refer to playing a tune, and precisely how it was used at the time of the writer – or indeed what he intended it to mean – are unclear.
However it is clear he did not fiddle: here were no violins in classical Rome because they were not invented until the 16th century. The nearest stringed instrument was the lyre.
Suetonius and Tacitus both made a rather more damning charge against Nero: that he ordered the burning of Rome himself in a spectacular act of arson. But historians have concluded even that is unlikely.
As for feeding Christians to lions, his other entry in the popular historical imagination, that is almost certainly fake news.
Suetonius and Tacitus both say he punished Christians by torture and execution, in Tacitus’ case specifically in the wake of the fire.
Tacitus says they were thrown to the dogs rather than lions, and the only text naming lions as eating Christians was around 100 years later.
The fire was the beginning of the end for Nero but it took four years for him to finally be toppled, committing suicide after he learned he had been condemned to death in absentia by the new emperor, the briefly-in charge Galba.
And Nero in antiquity appears to have been as divisive a figure as Trump in modern America: after his death, while historians painted him as a tyrant, three populist rebellions were headed by would-be usurpers of the emperors who called themselves ‘Nero reborn’ to enlist support.