Notes

On the night of July 18, A.D. 64, a fire started in the Circus Maximus that would burn out of control, leaving little of the city untouched. At the time it occurred, Nero was at Antium but immediately returned to Rome to oversee relief efforts. While ancient writers tend to blame Nero for starting the fire, this is far from certain. Much of Rome was made with combustible material and the city was overcrowded. After the flames died down Nero apparently tried to cast blame on the Christians, at the time a fairly small sect. "Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace," wrote Tacitus (translation from Jürgen Malitz's "Nero"). "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 nightly illumination when daylight had expired."While it is not known whether Nero started the fire, he did take advantage of the space it cleared. He started work on a new palace called the Domus Aurea (golden palace), which was said, at the entranceway, to have included a 120-foot-long (37 meters) column that contained a statue of him