The great fire of Rome broke out on July 19^th of 64^A.D., starting in the shops around the Circus Maximus and quickly spreading north.  After raging for six days, firefighters finally seemed to contain the conflagration, but it suddenly re-erupted (either by accident or design) on the Capitoline Hill, and by the end of the month had razed three of the city’s fourteen quartiers.   It was the worst disaster to have ever befallen Rome, and the only thing that would outdo it in destructiveness would be the actual sacking of Rome by the Visigoths four hundred years later.  

The infamous image of Nero fiddling while Rome burned is untrue in a literal sense: Nero played the lyre (not the fiddle, which didn’t even exist yet) and was away in Antium on the coast when the fire broke out.  However, many believed at the time (and even now) that the “fiddling Nero” picture is an accurate metaphor for the motive behind the fire—and who took the blame.  Even as the ashes cooled, rumors spread that the Caesar himself had ordered the fire started for personal reasons, usually as an excuse to clear out slums and expand his palace construction.  Since Nero himself lost a lot of property in the fire, this is not very likely.  However, the general historical attitude has been that whoever really started the fire, Nero needed a quick scapegoat and unjustly chose the then-unknown Christians to bear the blame. 

Needless to say, the Church has always denied any involvement in the fire, claming they were nothing but government patsies.   Of course, that’s just what you’d expect them to say.  Hiding behind a passive mask, they feebly cry “non mea culpa!”  They want us to believe that the early church in Rome was a passive, non-pyromaniac parish that only preached love and would never do anything like burn the whole town down. 

The only non-Christian source that claims the Church had no part in the fire comes from Roman historian Tacitus, who was nine when the blaze happened.  A fervent Republican, his Annales of Imperial Rome are heavily biased against the succession of Caesars, so his negative treatment of the fire should be seen as standard Nero-bashing.  Tacitus so hated Nero that he automatically assumed (without actual proof) that Nero had made up the Christian excuse out of immediate convenience.  Essentially, Tacitus exonerates the Christians with the logic ‘if Nero hated them, they must be okay.’ 

Tacitus may have absolved the Christians, but his Annales descriptions show that either he did not have accurate information about the group’s beliefs, or he was describing a community very different from that we stereotypically expect of First Century Christians.  

Truth be known, we know next to nothing about the Christians living in Rome at the time of the fire.  And if the letter Paul wrote to the Romans a few years previous was any indication, they were actually a massively confused bunch caught up in Christ fever. 

Now a new historical discovery proves the idea that a simple, passive Christian community in Rome is pure bullshit. 

During the recent reconstruction of a restaurant outside Rome, a previously unknown masonry wall was discovered by plumbers in the basement.  Behind the bricks was a small room, obviously sealed off for centuries.  Inside was a cask of amontillado and a badly tarnished brass box brimming with loose scraps of paper.   By the time archaeologists arrived, the plumbers had drunk the amontillado (as well as impregnated two of the waitresses) and the box’s contents were being used to roll spliffs.   

The cache proved to be the business papers of Flavius Maximus, apparently a wealthy Roman business magnate, and largely consists of bar tabs, receipts for sheep, several “IOU’s” from a brothel, etc.  All were in Latin, and the majority are in one distinct handwriting with consistently bad grammar (presumably Flavius himself.)    They can be dated conclusively to the middle of the First Century, and indeed one particularly important document can be dated to the first week of August 64.

Among the cache of Flavius Maximus documents is a letter from his brother, Felonius Maximus, who lost his home and a chariot in the great conflagration, and was asking Flavius for a large loan to help him out.  Written just days after the disaster, the letter is full of vivid imagery and details, and contains a number of important references that shed a new perspective on this historic

The Maximus letter provides a chilling narrative of the real people involved in the fire.

Apparently the fire was the endgame of a Roman police raid on a group Maximus calls “Ramus Ericius.”  The Romans attempted to serve an arrest warrant for sword sharpness violations, but a battle broke out, resulting in a stalemate and prolonged siege.  Maximus reports that the Roman in charge, Janus Renos, ordered the Ericius complex stormed, during which the fire broke out.   It was apparently Renos who first blamed the Ramus Ericius for the fire, and this went unchallenged as explanation.  

mentions that there were rumors that Renos had secretly ordered the Ericius building burned, but seems to believe it is reasonable that the Ericiusians were indeed responsible for the fire.  Felonius mentions them poorly, describing them as “secta imbecillus cum nux dux” (crazy cult with nutty leader).

Unfortunately, damage to the document at this crucial point makes it difficult to find out much concerning this mysterious Ramus Ericius, and Felonius is more concerned with hitting his brother up for money than he is with describing the group.  However,  one must wonder at the coincidences.

It should be clear that Ramus Ericius is a thinly disguised Christian “front”, and that the Brain Police are the ones who started the fire.  But you already knew that, didn’t you.  Well, here’s one final thought to ponder: a little over a year after the fire broke out in Rome, Revolution broke out in Israel, ultimately resulting in the burning of Jerusalem.  

Coincidence?  I think not!

 

  Blasting Thermodynamics