Who’s Your Nero Now?

by Lucia Howard and David Weingarten

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, later Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, aka Nero, was Emperor when the Great Fire of Rome (Incendium Magnum Romae) erupted in 64CE. He is famously said to have fiddled while overseeing the incineration of two-thirds of the Eternal City.

Certain killjoy historians point out that the forerunner of the fiddle, derived from a Byzantine instrument, appeared only in the 9th or 10th or 11th century. In fact, they say, Nero may have played a lyre or, possibly, sang. Neither of these responses to catastrophe, of course, suggest the signal indifference of fiddling. Nero played the lyre (or sang), while Rome burned? Neither satisfies.

In the aftermath of the Great Fire, not quite eyewitness accounts held that Nero himself, with his henchmen, had set their torches to the wooden buildings which ignited the conflagration; the Emperor wanting to clear space for an enormous expansion of his already vast palace. To deflect blame, Nero blamed Rome’s Christians for the catastrophe and began a campaign of retribution unusually cruel, even for a man who’d arranged his mother’s murder, and personally seen to those of his first and second wives. Many believers were burned alive.

One year ago in California, Piraneseum’s home, three of the four largest fires in the State’s history blazed simultaneously. This year, as we write this, four of the twenty largest fires in California history are currently alight; including the Dixie Fire which, with not quite a million acres now burnt, promises to become the largest in State history. Records, say historians, are made to be broken.

And as the flames advance, what of our leaders, our Neros? I doubt they are playing lyres (or singing), though it wouldn’t be far off to describe them as fiddling. Why? Our Neros don’t seek more space for their palaces, not in the usual sense. Instead, they aspire to build power, dominion. And should the conflagrations they light get out of hand, are others handy to blame; look South.

Matters did not end well for Nero. Four years after the Great Fire, events escaped his control, he found himself blamed and suicide offered itself as the Emperor’s best option. (You know you’ve mis-stepped when this happens.) Among the various accounts of Nero’s last words is this, “Qualis artifex pereo!” – What an artist dies in me!” Most of our Neros operate at a distance from Art, though there have been notorious exceptions (what causes some strongmen to fancy themselves possessed of artistic sensibilities?). And yet, all share with the ancient Emperor his surfeit of self regard.