18th July, what made Nero singing and playing the lyre?
July 18, 2007
Today, 1943 years ago, Nero motivated by a insane whim he sent out his men to destroy Rome. The Great Fire erupted on the night of July 18 to July 19, 64
The varying historical accounts of the fire come from many secondary sources. One of them has been Suetonius who wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars in the reign of Vespasian around 70AD.
He not only chronicled the extraordinary career of Nero but also of Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Vespasian and Domitian and the rest in technicolour terms.
They presented some high and low times at the heart of the Roman Empire. The accounts provide with perspicacious insights into the men as much as their reigns - and it was from Suetonius that subsequent writers such as Robert Graves drew so much of their material.
All twelve of the first Caesars with all their faults laid bare.
If you don’t lie to read, just listen Suetonius - Lives of the Twelve Caesars