# Short Stuff: Nero and His Fiddle

An episode of [Stuff You Should Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/278981407), 12 Aug 2026, 12 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a91018a4-ea4f-4130-bf55-ae270180c327/94c57e69-6c04-4145-aabb-b4a3014bc50e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=44710ecc-10bb-48d1-93c7-ae270180c33e

Did Nero play his fiddle while Rome burned during the Great Fire of 64 CE? Absolutely not. Find out how we know when Chuck and Josh bust a two thousand year-old myth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: Hey him, Welcome to short stuff Josh, Chuck, Jerry sitting
[0:08] Speaker 1: in for Dave. And this makes this an official short stuff.
[0:10] Speaker 1: We have the quorum. Let's go.
[0:13] Speaker 2: That's right. Do you recognize this article?
[0:16] Speaker 1: No? Who wrote it? Did I write? Did you write?
[0:19] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[0:19] Speaker 2: You wrote it?
[0:20] Speaker 1: Did I really?
[0:21] Speaker 2: Uh?
[0:21] Speaker 1: Huh wow? I was like, this is pretty good.
[0:24] Speaker 2: I took your name off of it because I was
[0:26] Speaker 2: hoping you wouldn't remember this one.
[0:27] Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, this is not a bad article at all.
[0:30] Speaker 1: That's great. Thank you for that, because uh yeah, I
[0:33] Speaker 1: like this. I was like, I like the cut of
[0:35] Speaker 1: this writer's Jim. Yeah.
[0:38] Speaker 3: So this is from the old house stuffworks dot com
[0:40] Speaker 3: days and this is about the And I was surprised
[0:43] Speaker 3: we hadn't done a shorty on this.
[0:44] Speaker 2: I was.
[0:44] Speaker 3: I was like, surely we have the story of Nero
[0:47] Speaker 3: fiddling while Rome burned. And when I looked it up,
[0:50] Speaker 3: there you were, buddy.
[0:53] Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually searched for an episode too, because it
[0:56] Speaker 1: just sounds like we've definitely talked about it at some point,
[0:59] Speaker 1: but it just had to have been a part of
[1:01] Speaker 1: a larger episode. So let's dig in because I feel
[1:04] Speaker 1: like everybody, thanks to my article, has heard that Nero
[1:08] Speaker 1: fiddled while Rome burned, and it turns out that that
[1:12] Speaker 1: is probably a piece of ancient propaganda that survived almost
[1:19] Speaker 1: two thousand years.
[1:20] Speaker 3: At this point, I feel like you have a little
[1:22] Speaker 3: extra wind beneath your wings.
[1:23] Speaker 2: Nowner, you know this is yours.
[1:25] Speaker 1: I've never felt more alive than i'd do right now.
[1:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking obviously about the Great Fire of Rome.
[1:31] Speaker 3: For six days and seven nights, that's when Rome saw
[1:34] Speaker 3: and this is eight sixty four, I saw seventy percent
[1:37] Speaker 3: of its city destroyed and only four of its fourteen
[1:41] Speaker 3: districts intact afterward.
[1:43] Speaker 1: Wow.
[1:44] Speaker 3: And the Roman historian Tacitus wrote that out of the
[1:50] Speaker 3: about half the people of the million people, which would
[1:52] Speaker 3: be by my count, five hundred thousand were rendered without
[1:56] Speaker 3: a home because of this great fire.
[1:58] Speaker 1: I knew that. So this being a massive tragedy which
[2:05] Speaker 1: two thousand years, I feel like we can add a
[2:08] Speaker 1: joker to you at this point, but sure that it
[2:11] Speaker 1: was such a huge tragedy and it was just so
[2:13] Speaker 1: out of nowhere. And of course people just have an
[2:16] Speaker 1: innate need to blame, to find cause, assign blame. People
[2:21] Speaker 1: love doing that even back in the day. And also
[2:24] Speaker 1: people back in the day were as susceptible to rumors
[2:27] Speaker 1: and urban legends as we are today, and those things
[2:32] Speaker 1: started up really quickly. One of the main ones was
[2:35] Speaker 1: that somehow the government was involved in this.
[2:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, Like, hey, we saw people, we saw
[2:42] Speaker 3: men fanning the flames, and when confronted, they said that
[2:45] Speaker 3: they were under orders to do so, or you know,
[2:49] Speaker 3: maybe somebody actually started this fire on purpose. In Nero,
[2:54] Speaker 3: the Emperor Nero was kind of the prime suspect.
[2:57] Speaker 1: It seems like, yeah, he ordered it, that he set
[3:00] Speaker 1: the fire, or some people. He had to rebuild Rome,
[3:05] Speaker 1: I mean, you had to rebuild it after so many
[3:07] Speaker 1: of the districts were just totally leveled, and he was like,
[3:10] Speaker 1: let's build this in I don't know, Nero style, which
[3:13] Speaker 1: is surprisingly close to the craftsman style of the nineteen twenties.
[3:18] Speaker 2: Oh really no. I was like, that's very surprising. But
[3:22] Speaker 2: they're gonna say art Deco.
[3:24] Speaker 1: I was going to at first, and I was like, not,
[3:26] Speaker 1: let me come up with something else, right, I should
[3:28] Speaker 1: have just said art Deco would have gotten better. Laugh.
[3:30] Speaker 1: But he rebuilt it in a manner that he liked.
[3:34] Speaker 1: I mean, he was in charge at the time. And
[3:36] Speaker 1: people were like, that's why Rome burnt, because this guy
[3:40] Speaker 1: wanted to rebuild it more in his image.
[3:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[3:44] Speaker 3: So that rumor was going around, and through that rumor, okay,
[3:48] Speaker 3: came the story that while the Great Fire was burning,
[3:51] Speaker 3: Nero played his fiddle and just sort of watched it happen.
[3:56] Speaker 2: Should we take a break right there?
[3:58] Speaker 1: We should, because I mean, what's coming up next is
[4:01] Speaker 1: just eyepopping.
[4:02] Speaker 3: That's right, more goodness from Josh Clark of fifteen years
[4:06] Speaker 3: ago right after this.
[4:27] Speaker 1: So Nero's like, wait a minute, wait, I wasn't fiddling.
[4:31] Speaker 1: We'll find out why. That's definitive in a second. Why
[4:35] Speaker 1: are you blaming me? And they're like, we're just blaming you.
[4:37] Speaker 1: You got to accept that. He's like, I don't. I'm
[4:39] Speaker 1: going to find a scapegoat myself. I'll trot them out
[4:42] Speaker 1: publicly and then you can just stop blaming me. And
[4:46] Speaker 1: he looked around. He's like, these Christians are new, I'm
[4:49] Speaker 1: going to persecute them. And this actually became the first
[4:51] Speaker 1: persecution of Christians in history. This was sixty four CE,
[4:57] Speaker 1: and I mean Christianity was so new that there was
[5:00] Speaker 1: still original apostles around who ended up being executed in
[5:04] Speaker 1: this persecution.
[5:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul, who was the other one.
[5:09] Speaker 1: Paul and Peter. Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified
[5:15] Speaker 1: upside down.
[5:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, So like torturous, brutal executions are happening because Nero
[5:22] Speaker 3: is looking for a scapegoat because he was blamed for
[5:24] Speaker 3: this fire. You know, when you said before we're going
[5:27] Speaker 3: to talk about why it's definitive that he definitely didn't fiddle,
[5:31] Speaker 3: it's because there was no fiddle at the time. Music
[5:35] Speaker 3: historians basically agreed that the vile class of instruments, which
[5:39] Speaker 3: is like a violin, didn't come around to the eleventh century,
[5:43] Speaker 3: so about fifteen hundred years later, So there literally were
[5:46] Speaker 3: no fiddles at the time.
[5:47] Speaker 1: No, but he did play something called the scythara, yeah,
[5:51] Speaker 1: which is like a laptop harp. The top is like
[5:55] Speaker 1: for strumming, the bottom is for plucking. You've probably seen
[5:59] Speaker 1: something like it before. But he was really into it,
[6:02] Speaker 1: so much so that when Rome conquered some new land,
[6:07] Speaker 1: he would schedule music festivals in these new lands, and
[6:09] Speaker 1: he would schedule them at times that he could go
[6:12] Speaker 1: and compete. He would compete, and the Senate was not
[6:15] Speaker 1: happy about this. They're like, you're competing against commoners, you're
[6:18] Speaker 1: the emperor. And apparently Nero actually was more like than
[6:23] Speaker 1: we think he was today, especially among the lower classes
[6:26] Speaker 1: of Rome, because he didn't behave nearly as superior toward
[6:31] Speaker 1: them as other elites in Rome had and did.
[6:36] Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, you know one thing he definitely did
[6:39] Speaker 3: was in the immediate aftermath of the fire, he did
[6:43] Speaker 3: a lot. Actually, he took a lot of measures to
[6:47] Speaker 3: provide for the citizenry. He was at his place in
[6:51] Speaker 3: Antium on the outskirts of Rome when it broke out.
[6:53] Speaker 3: He immediately rushed back to the fire. Tacitus, that historian
[6:57] Speaker 3: that I mentioned, was a boy at the time during
[6:59] Speaker 3: the blaze, and he provided accounts of like hey, Nero
[7:04] Speaker 3: helped coordinate the firefighting himself on the first night. He
[7:08] Speaker 3: opened up public buildings for housing, He opened up his
[7:10] Speaker 3: own gardens for temporary shelter. Yeah, he imported grain from
[7:15] Speaker 3: other cities close by that I guess he sold, but
[7:18] Speaker 3: sold like super cheap.
[7:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, he still sold it, though I thought that was
[7:21] Speaker 1: a little hinky, Yeah for sure. But yeah, so he
[7:25] Speaker 1: was a lot of the residents of Rome liked him,
[7:28] Speaker 1: and Tacitus tells us like he did actually swing into action,
[7:31] Speaker 1: and yet he still managed to bear the blame throughout this,
[7:35] Speaker 1: like his persecution of Christians did not work. And apparently,
[7:40] Speaker 1: like we said, the fiddling thing was not It's not
[7:44] Speaker 1: possible that he fiddled. It is possible he was playing
[7:47] Speaker 1: the sthara, but because of his responsiveness, it seems like
[7:52] Speaker 1: that's probably not the case. So because this was probably
[7:57] Speaker 1: largely created by the Senate, like the I think they
[8:00] Speaker 1: were working hard to keep the blame on Nero.
[8:03] Speaker 3: Right.
[8:05] Speaker 1: There's a nineteen forties historian from the University of North
[8:09] Speaker 1: Carolina named Mary Francis Giles Go tar heels, Yeah, and yes,
[8:14] Speaker 1: if you're a tar heel, you can be proud of
[8:16] Speaker 1: Mary Francis Gilds because she was one of those rare
[8:19] Speaker 1: people who managed to see something that everybody knows in
[8:23] Speaker 1: a different light, at a different angle. And she's like,
[8:26] Speaker 1: you know, fiddling doesn't just mean playing a violin. It
[8:29] Speaker 1: can also mean just kind of doing something like with
[8:32] Speaker 1: your fingers, like ineffectually, like you're wasting time and energy,
[8:36] Speaker 1: you're just fiddling around. Maybe that's what they originally meant.
[8:40] Speaker 2: I don't know why I never thought of that.
[8:42] Speaker 1: I definitely hadn't either. Even after writing this, it didn't
[8:45] Speaker 1: even look familiar.
[8:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, she was like, you know, maybe he's just fiddling,
[8:50] Speaker 3: as in, like doing something sort of useless. At the time,
[8:55] Speaker 3: it sounds like that didn't happen either, But yeah, maybe
[8:59] Speaker 3: they viewed it inadequate at the time, like what he
[9:02] Speaker 3: was doing. Maybe the truth wasn't getting around that he
[9:04] Speaker 3: was actually kind of helping, right.
[9:06] Speaker 1: And that actually fits with the idea that this was
[9:09] Speaker 1: propaganda that the Senate was basically saying Nero's responses were
[9:13] Speaker 1: not nearly enough. He was just basically messing around.
[9:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
[9:18] Speaker 3: But you know, if you're like, man Nero got a
[9:20] Speaker 3: bad rap, there's a brilliant writer who took that into consideration.
[9:27] Speaker 3: But probably I don't know, fifteen years ago ish and said, hey,
[9:32] Speaker 3: don't feel so bad for Nero because Nero ascended to
[9:35] Speaker 3: the throne because his mom killed his uncle, and then
[9:39] Speaker 3: Nero had his mom killed. Yeah, and then of course
[9:42] Speaker 3: the persecution of the Christians, you know, hanging people by
[9:47] Speaker 3: their feet and decapitating them, Like, don't feel bad for
[9:50] Speaker 3: this guy.
[9:50] Speaker 2: Now.
[9:51] Speaker 1: There was also dumb Nascio Abestius, which is sicking wild
[9:56] Speaker 1: animals on people for executions.
[9:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, no good.
[10:00] Speaker 1: So Nero essentially was on his heels after that great fire. Again, remember,
[10:06] Speaker 1: the Senate didn't like him, like him that much. I
[10:08] Speaker 1: can't stress that enough. And so the army, which he
[10:13] Speaker 1: had been on really good terms with for a while,
[10:15] Speaker 1: was like, we're not going to work for you any longer.
[10:19] Speaker 1: So there's a potential coup brewing. The Senate declared him
[10:23] Speaker 1: a public enemy, which is not something you want levied
[10:26] Speaker 1: against you as an emperor. It meant that he was
[10:28] Speaker 1: probably going to be executed. So he pushed a dagger
[10:31] Speaker 1: into his throat about four years after the fire came and.
[10:34] Speaker 2: Went, yeah, he said, I sense a cupbrew. That was it.
[10:41] Speaker 2: I don't know if you talk like that.
[10:42] Speaker 3: You know, I'm watching the show right now and it's.
[10:47] Speaker 2: Oh, Star City, have you heard of this?
[10:51] Speaker 3: Star City is a show that is I can't remember
[10:55] Speaker 3: the name of the first show, but there was a
[10:57] Speaker 3: show about the Space Race, and there was an American
[11:00] Speaker 3: version for All Mankind is what that was called from
[11:04] Speaker 3: the American perspective, and Star City is the Space Race
[11:07] Speaker 3: from the Soviet perspective.
[11:10] Speaker 2: And it's really good. I think you would like it.
[11:11] Speaker 3: But they cast all British actors and are doing British
[11:16] Speaker 3: accents sort of like they used to just do for
[11:18] Speaker 3: all movies back in the day. And it's just I
[11:21] Speaker 3: got to wrap my head around every single episode when
[11:24] Speaker 3: all these Brits are talking. I try to hear it
[11:27] Speaker 3: in like with a Russian accent in my head, and
[11:29] Speaker 3: it just kind of drives me nuts.
[11:31] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I can get used to that kind of thing,
[11:34] Speaker 1: but I think it's also something that if you once
[11:36] Speaker 1: you focus in on it, you just can't get past.
[11:40] Speaker 3: I don't know why in twenty twenty six they just
[11:42] Speaker 3: didn't say, like, you know, do a Russian accent.
[11:44] Speaker 1: I know it's appropriations or Russians. It's very strange, but
[11:49] Speaker 1: I guess that's it for the short Stuff, right, That's right, Okay,
[11:52] Speaker 1: well everybody. Short Stuff is out.
[11:57] Speaker 3: Stuff you should know is a production of Iheartrating.
[12:00] Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
[12:04] Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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