Latest / Nero: Mad Tyrant or Misunderstood Emperor? — Fexingo History / Nero and the Christians: The Scapegoats of 64 AD
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about the Great Fire of 64 AD — how it destroyed ten of Rome's fourteen districts, how Nero opened his palaces to the homeless, how he brought in grain from Ostia to prevent famine. But there's one part of that story that we haven't really dug into, and it's probably the most infamous thing Nero ever did. Luna: The persecution of the Christians? Lucas: Exactly. When rumors spread that Nero himself had started the fire — and those rumors were everywhere — he needed a scapegoat. And he found one in a small, misunderstood religious group that most Romans already despised. The Christians. Lucas: Now, we have to be careful here. The story of Nero's persecution comes down to us from a handful of sources, and they're not all reliable. The earliest and most credible account is from Tacitus, writing about fifty years later in his Annals. He says Nero arrested and tortured Christians, then executed them in brutal public spectacles. Luna: And that's where we get the idea of Christians being fed to lions, right? Lucas: That's partly right. Tacitus describes them being covered in animal skins and torn apart by dogs, or crucified, or set on fire to serve as torches — literally, human torches — in Nero's gardens at night. But he doesn't mention lions specifically. That detail might have come from later Christian tradition, or from other Roman writers who embellished the story. Lucas: What Tacitus does tell us is that Nero staged these executions in his own private circus, near the Vatican hill, and that the crowd — even Romans who had no love for Christians — began to feel sympathy for them because the punishment was so excessive. Luna: So even the Roman public, who were used to gladiator games, thought Nero went too far? Lucas: Exactly. Tacitus says something like — I'm paraphrasing — 'a feeling of pity arose, because they were being destroyed not for the public good, but to satisfy one man's cruelty.' That's a pretty damning judgment from a historian who didn't exactly love Christians either. Lucas: But here's the thing: we don't actually know how many Christians died. Tacitus says 'a huge multitude' — but he doesn't give numbers. Later Christian sources, like the apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul, put the death toll much higher, and they add dramatic details like Peter being crucified upside down and Paul being beheaded. But those texts were written a century or more later, and they're more about theology than history. Luna: Did Paul and Peter actually die in the persecution? Lucas: Probably yes, but we can't be sure. Paul had been under house arrest in Rome since around 60 or 61 AD, so he was already there when the fire happened. The early church historian Clement of Rome, writing in the 90s AD, says Paul was executed under Nero's rule. And Peter's death by crucifixion — upside down, according to tradition — is also linked to Nero's persecution by later writers like Tertullian and Origen. But the historical evidence is thin. Lucas: And we have to remember that at this time, Christianity was still a tiny Jewish sect. Most Romans lumped them together with Jews, or confused them with other eastern cults. Tacitus calls them 'Chrestians' — which might just be a misspelling. He says they were hated for their 'abominations,' but he doesn't elaborate. So Nero's choice of scapegoat wasn't random, but it also wasn't the huge, well-organized group we might imagine. Luna: So why did he pick them specifically? Lucas: Good question. The most likely reason is that they were already a target of popular suspicion. Romans thought Christians practiced cannibalism — because of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ — and incest, because they called each other 'brother' and 'sister.' They refused to worship the Roman gods or participate in state cults, which looked like treason. So when Nero needed a group to blame, Christians were an easy and unpopular target. Lucas: And there might have been a political angle too. Nero's prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Tigellinus, was deeply involved in the persecution. He was Nero's right-hand man and was known for his brutality. Some historians think Tigellinus saw the persecution as a way to distract from the fire and to bolster Nero's faltering popularity. Luna: And the fire itself — we've talked about this before, but what's the evidence that Nero did or didn't start it? Lucas: Tacitus says it started in the shops around the Circus Maximus, and that Nero was actually at his villa in Antium when it broke out. He rushed back to Rome and organized relief efforts. But rumors spread that he had been seen on a private stage, singing about the fall of Troy — the famous 'fiddling while Rome burns' story. That image is almost certainly a myth — Nero was a cithara player, not a fiddler, and the instrument hadn't been invented yet. But the rumor stuck because it was so dramatic. Lucas: Suetonius, writing a few decades later, is more willing to believe the worst. He says Nero started the fire because he wanted to rebuild Rome and name it Neropolis. Cassius Dio, writing in the third century, says Nero sent men out to set fires. But Suetonius and Dio are both writing after Nero's downfall and after the persecution had been widely condemned. They're part of a hostile tradition. Luna: And then there's the Domus Aurea connection — the fire cleared land for his golden palace. Lucas: Yes. After the fire, Nero seized a huge area of the burned-out city — something like 300 acres — and started building the Domus Aurea, his massive palace complex with the artificial lake and the Colossus. That definitely fueled the suspicion that he had engineered the whole disaster. But Tacitus says the fire was an accident, and modern historians tend to agree. The fire spread quickly because of wooden buildings and narrow streets, and the wind was strong. Lucas: But here's where I think the story gets really interesting. The persecution of Christians in 64 AD wasn't just a Roman atrocity — it became a foundational event for Christianity. Before Nero, Christians were seen as a Jewish sect. After Nero, they had their first martyrs, their first definitive break from Judaism in the Roman imagination, and a model for how to die for one's faith. The image of Peter and Paul dying in Rome gave the church a claim to apostolic authority. And Nero himself — in Christian tradition — becomes the Antichrist, a monster who will return at the end of days. Luna: Wait, the Antichrist? That's a specific connection. Lucas: It is. There's a tradition, going back to the early church father Irenaeus in the second century, that the Antichrist will be named something that adds up to 666, and some interpreters linked that to Nero — because the Greek letters of 'Nero Caesar' transliterated into Hebrew add up to 666. That's a big topic in itself, and scholars still debate it. But it shows how Nero's persecution gave him a permanent place in Christian eschatology. Lucas: So when we ask whether Nero was a mad tyrant or a misunderstood emperor, the persecution is a huge part of the case against him. Even if he didn't start the fire, he used a vulnerable minority as a scapegoat and had them tortured and killed in ways that shocked even Rome. That's not just bad PR — it's state-sponsored murder. And it's one of the reasons his name has been cursed for two thousand years. Luna: It's sad to think that if he hadn't done that, his reputation might be very different. Lucas: Maybe. But he did. And in a way, the persecution of 64 AD is one of the few things we can be fairly sure happened. Unlike some of the wilder stories, like the fiddling or the incest, the persecution has a solid source in Tacitus, and it's corroborated by other writers. It's a dark moment, but it's also a real one — and it helps us understand how history gets written by the winners, and the losers.