Nero and the great Fire of Rome.

[Numerianus]

Recently, I had a discussion with my colleagues about Nero's personality,
persecutions of Christians and the fire of Rome.  My arguments were not accepted by
everybody. Unfortunately, an old  thread on Roman fire  cannot be consulted. It seems that it was removed
but a  thread on a more general
subject, on anti-christian emperors, does exist  in Classical Numismatics: 
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=2028.0

My analysis is based on an our-day understanding of psychology, role of  propaganda and political sciences.   
The  main points are the following:

1. Roman author's,  to large extent, denigrate Nero, for their specific purpose
(in particular, to confront  Republicam Rome to t)heRome of Caesars).
In reality, Nero was a fat mild guy,  cultivated, intelligent, an amateur poet and  artist, collector (numismatist?)...
His cruelities were conditioned by the epoch and his behavior in many circumstancies can be compared
with that of a cornered animal.
 
2. Nero's actions  during the  Rome fire were the best that one could expect from the head of the state
and the city mayor. Recall that he immediately arrived to Rome, opened his gardens for those who lost the roof,
organize food supply. He lost his palace with magnificent collections with invaluable masterpieces in fire. 
Finally, he ordered to rebuilt  Rome to make it the world capital. These are the facts, the other information given
by Tacitus and Suetone are rumours serving to confirm the aithor's anti-Nero position .  The story that he ordered
to burn Rome is in a striking similitude with the modern conspiracy theories abot September 11.

3. His persecution of Christians was justifiable and consistent. It is quite plausible that adepts of some  Messianic sects were rejoiced
by the disaster and helped to propagate the fire. Recall that there was a law prohibiting secret societies. The emperor had a powerful
secret service that allowed him to find guilties. 
The  Roman authors agrees that  the Christiani should be taken to the justice as the worst enemies
of  the humanity.  It was quite logical to use dissuasive  panishments destroying  the  bodies of condemned
criminals  (Christain sources inform us that some  of them  were executed in a  "conventional" way, by a crusification,
as usual at this epoch). Christians believed in afterlife and so they should not afraid the death if the body remains intact for resurrection.

It may happen that for early Christians, similarly to some modern sects, a  suicide  was a shortest  way to immortality.
To confirm the theory,  it would be interesting to know when the church condemn  the suicide. I read somewhere that it was a hot issue in the 1st century...

Also, it would be interesting to find evidences that  British troops used some cruel methods against jihadists by burien them in a pigskin.
I read about this somewhere but the sources were not mentioned.

4. As the supreme commander, Nero send the elite troops to Middle  Easts, with his brilliant general, Vespasian.
Was it a wise decision? It would be interesting to  know whether  unrest in this region was really menacing to
the Roman interests.  Rome depended a lot from the oil supply from Middle East...

[scardan123]

A large part of what we know about roman emperors comes from biographies.
Biographies, as the majorty of ancient texts, passed the filter of the early christians (and later of the medieval monks, but that is quite another issue).
There was also the strong filter of the republican-friendly authors/intelligentia.
Usually emperors opposing the christians and/or acting against the senate (e.g. reducing its power) or asusming more "oriental" attidues (emperor as "divus et dominus") were later relegated into a negative role, being depicted very negatively, either by authors sympathising for the senate, or by later christian authors. The idea of reporting event neutrally is a very very modern idea, totally anachronistic (with a very few exceptions).

Nero's burning of rome was likely a drastic measure to solve some huge issues in the city's planning, urbanistic and safety, as rome developed to an enormous city in a (relatively) very short time, and most areas grew in disoder, and many buildings constituted a high risk for the nearby buildings. Many were build in wood, although our perception today is that of a city of marble (because marble resists in time, whereas wood not, so we see so many marble buildings, but the common insula e.g. plebeian house was made of wood).

Indeed, some of the "cruel" or "crazy" emperors made some excellent reforms...
If you think well about it, in modern-era ex-URRS some rival politicans are still (or were still) depicted as mentally insane or declared as such by corrupted doctors, in order to exclude them, or have them ridiculized. TImes have changed not as much as we might hope...

The protrait of some emperors has been revised by more informed critics on the original texts, combinig different sources and getting information also from archeological findings. Although many people know some movies better than some historical events, we have to separate between legend/tale and history/catual facts.

[basemetal]

 One thing to remember, is that through that filter of later history, one may notice that the "bad" emperors weren't necessarily despised by the common people.  Many of the historians of the time viewed the opinions of the "masses" as irrevelant.
If one examines common features of the "bad' emperors they almost always seem to be that they spent money on themselves and their own grandeur without doing anything that resonated in history, and more importantly, they clashed with the aristocracy, meaning wealthy romans and/or the senate.  Following this, given the above THEN their personal vices were called into question by writers of the time and later christians.
It depends on one's definition of "bad" or "immoral"practices,  mostly based on how many and what class of  people you ah..piss off by exercising them.
Trajan is considered one of the greatest emperors, but he had a prediliction for as is written "boys and wine" not in that order perhaps, but this is dismissed as:
"Since he did not seem to get drunk, and his relations with boys harmed no one, and neither affected his performance as emperor, no one cares". Of course, no one asked the boys involved about what they may have thought about forced sodomy.
a very garbled paraphrase on my part, but you get the idea. Even later christians revered him.
Even today we certainly think more kindly about Trajan than Nero, though I'm sure then as now if Trajan came through your province and took that cute little first-born son of yours for his seragliao, you'd feel somewhat differently.
Most of the "bad" emperors seemed to get into trouble historically when they stole from the rich to enrich themselves, then in effect raised a statue or temple about it, then when this was pointed out, did even more of the same.
Very few, to put it mildly or none of the emperors were brought down by the "will of the masses".
From what I read the average hide tanner of the time of Commodus thought him to be quite the stuff.