The Great Fire Of Rome Book Summary

The book The Great Fire of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins begins with the story of Nero and his life before power. As the book continues it shows Nero come to power and then slowly lose his mind. The book discusses the persecution of the Christians, and at one point focus’ on a 26 year old man named Joseph, who has become a Roman citizen, he meets a man named Paul who is on trial for being Christian and is waiting for the ruling on his case. Paul is taken away and Joseph finds his way to Rome and meets a Jewish actor who is loved by Nero, through this relationship Joseph becomes friends with Nero’s wife and with her help he tries to influence people with the Jewish religion. Then the great fire happens and the author shows two possibilities of what could have happened, with Nero starting the fire and with the fire starting by accident. Over the next couple of chapters there is talk over suspicions of who actually started the fire. Nero is a suspect and eventually convicted of starting the fire but Nero only saw this as a boost to his name. The story ends with a reflection on the good and the bad that Nero had done.

What the author wants the reader to take away from this book is that because of the great fire there were fatal political ramifications for Nero. The author builds suspense in the book by

moving along the timeline of Nero and the major events that happened during his reign and life. By doing this the author is able to show who Nero was and why after the great fire he was convicted of starting it. The authors thesis talks specifically about the political ramifications for Nero because he started the fire. The author wants the reader to know that there were some very fatal consequences for Nero because he was believed to have started the fire.
The author used different perspectives to prove his thesis such as using a different view when Nero was being accused of starting the fire, it focused on a different man who originally believed Nero had done it. After the blame was cast onto Nero and his conspirators, the book showed how Nero’s popularity declined, how having to rebuild Rome put the country into debt that contributed to the end of Rome, and how Nero tried to blame the Christians which then led to the persecution of the Christians. Because he was accused of starting the fire Nero was unable to continue on his path to power “Had there been no Great Fire, Nero would have embarked on his Ethiopian and Caspian Gates operations and may well have become the new Alexander the Great.” Nero would have become a very successful man, this is a point that Dando-Collins wanted to prove. (P231 The Great Fire of Rome) Nero was also accused of treason. After all of this happened Nero committed suicide by poison.
Stephen Dando-Collins saw Nero as a ruler who took advantage after the fire and after he saw the consequences of Nero’s actions. Other historians such as Tacitus, he was alive during the time of Nero, he believed that Nero started the fire and was able to help convince others that Nero had started the fire. Other ancient historians believe that Nero was responsible because he wanted to rebuild the city in his image. Modern day historians do not believe that Nero started the fire, these historians are from National Geographics and chose not to be named. They believe this because Nero was nowhere near Rome during the time of the fire, in fact he was on the coast for a competition when the fire was started. In the book Who Killed King Tut the problem of mystery surrounding a controversial event in the case of King Tut, how he actually died. This is much like in The Great Fire of Rome in which Nero is accused of starting the great fire. In both works there is a mystery that has never truly been solved to the point where historians know exactly what happened. In both cases the authors use facts
The Great Fire of Rome was an amazing book.

Different aspects of the story were told by different people to give it more meaning and depth than if it had just been one perspective. For instance when one of the chapters was talking about the beginning of the persecution of the Christians the story was focused on Joseph. This gives the idea of the persecution a whole new perspective than if it had been focused on Nero like most of the story. The book also began before Nero rose to power, it was nice to have background on the main focus of the story. The Great Fire of Rome is a great book for anyone who is interested in the great fire or the history of emperor

Nero.