On this day, 1,944 years ago, the Great Fire of Rome began. The
fire was devastating. It burned for six days and seven nights,
utterly destroying four of fourteen districts in Rome and
severely damaging most of the rest. The palace of Emperor Nero
and some prominent pagan temples were destroyed in the blaze.
Some accounts claim Nero "fiddled while Rome burned," but it is
more likely that he was not in the city at the time. According
to the Roman historian Tacitus, however, in response to rumors
that Nero himself started the fire, Nero blamed the Christians
in Rome. 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 firs