Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;sylvester, post: 78289, member: 708&quot;]Actually Aidan the fact that Nero started the fire isn&#039;t actually a &#039;fact&#039;, but is quite debated. The earlist references to Nero having started the fire apparently came about in the middle ages. Other sources stated Nero wasn&#039;t even in Rome when the fire started but arrived there as soon as he could and then actually was running around the streets with buckets of water trying to put it out.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course what condemned Nero were three things;</p><p><br /></p><p>1) Once the city had burned down he decided to rebuild it for the people (ah nice Nero!) but he did this partially by taxing the people of Rome! (bad Nero!)</p><p><br /></p><p>2) He also took a large spot of the cleared burned out city for his new palace. Could be Nero mearly taking advatage but of course people would soon be thinking, what if he&#039;d done it on purpose? Nero wasn&#039;t bright enough to realise this though.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Someone had to be blamed for the fire. A small religious sect had been going around a few months earlier saying Rome would be destroyed if it didn&#039;t give up it&#039;s idol worshipping ways and the anger of God would destroy the city with fire. This little group were Christians. Of course everyone was well aware of what they&#039;d been saying so they kinda suggested themselves to Nero. Don&#039;t forget the Romans were religious too and they thought having monotheists around might have insulted their gods and thus it was a message from Jupiter, kick out the monotheists or suffer more destruction. So natuirally Nero had them rounded up and crucified in his garden and then set on fire and used as torches.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course Christianity won out and the people writing the history books were generally ecclesiastics throughout much of the medieval period and thus when it came to Nero, it was obvious he was a lunatic that started the fire to build his bigger palace, and don&#039;t forget he played the lyre and sang as Rome perished. Then he picked on a poor unfortunate group of Christains that were minding their own business and living quiet holy lives in purity.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>In essence history books have tended to paint things too black and white. Nero went from light grey to dark grey.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in