Nero Burning Rome

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They said that Nero watched Rome burned from his palace at Palatine Hill singing and playing the lyre. They even said that Nero himself sent out men to set fire to the city. Some even blamed the Christians that sets out to burn Rome. There are those that even said that Nero was not even in Rome when the disaster happened.

Photo credit: Google Images

Whatever surviving historical accounts that we have today with regards to the Great Fire of Rome in 64AD came only from secondary sources through the writings of Cassius Dio, Seutonius and Tacitus. Unfortunately the primary accounts from contemporary writers like Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder no longer survived. 

Photo credit: Google Images

Since only the secondary sources survived and they tends to differ from each other, and even the primary accounts themselves were said to be contradictory and exaggerated.  Modern historians tends to agree with Tacitus version of the event though in truth, while we do know that the fire incident did happened, we may never truly know how and who caused that event to happen.

Photo credit: Google Images

We also do know that during the flood crisis in Kelantan late last year, our Prime Minister was away playing golf with Obama. We also know that when Sabah was hit by an earthquake a few days ago, our Prime Minister was seen in Saudi Arabia a few days later. Those two things we do know and they have been reported all over the news.

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What we may never know unless we are in the loop are the reasons. Maybe it was a coincidence that the Prime Minister left the country right after the much talk about Nothing 2Hide/Everything2Hide incidents? Maybe the prime Minister unfortunately has booked with AirAsia with its No Cancellation Policy which made him not able to cancel these engagements when disaster struck the country? 

Photo credit: Google Images

We don’t know the reasons and that unfortunately, for better or worse leaves room for a lot of speculations. What we only know is that at the time of national trouble and disaster, our very dear leader is not here with us to share our grief and to relief our pain. For me, I will let those political players (and political writers) present to us their version of these stories while I go on and continue to read and write what I know about.

I know that not long after the Great Fire of Rome, Nero was murdered and since he was the last in line of the first Julio-Claudian imperial dynasty, the imperial throne of Rome was contested by 4 influential generals (google Year of the Four Emperors) between late 68AD until 69AD when the victorious Vespasian finally becomes the victor to wear the purple and Rome finally had peace internally for the next hundred years.

Disclaimer : All images are for illustration purposes only and this blog author does not claim any copyright to the published images and he only copied the images already publicly available on the internet (unless stated). The blog author also wishes to state that his opinion posted on this blog are his alone and not paid by any political parties.