Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

by James Romm

Nero could not save Rome, but he did what he could for the Romans. He threw open his own properties, imperial gardens in untouched places like the Vatican hill, to survivors and ordered shelters built. The Field of Mars, thus far out of the path of the fires, was converted into a refugee camp. Emergency grain supplies were brought up from Ostia and sold at a subsidized price. Those still able, and willing, to live would have the means to do so. After six days the fire was apparently stopped by a brake, but it flared up again and burned for three more days. Finally it died out for good, mostly for lack of fuel. Perhaps two-thirds of the city had been destroyed. The only regions spared were those fenced off by barriers: the Tiber River had protected the Vatican, while the Field of Mars and the Quirinal and Esquiline Hills were shielded by a set of old ramparts called the Servian Walls, originally built around a much smaller Rome to guard against Gallic invaders. In the camps that now sprawled in these places, stories began to spread, many demonizing Nero.