But even if Nero did play music while Rome was burning, he would not have used a fiddle, as bowed instruments would not become popular for another 1,000 years, Drake said.

The ruins of Emperor Nero’s theater have been uncovered in Rome, Italian officials said. Photo from Soprintendenza Speciale Roma Contrary to legend, Nero probably did not play the fiddle during ...

Rethinking Nero. He killed two of his wives and possibly his mother. He may have presided over the burning of Rome. But he never fiddled, and now some scholars say he wasn’t all bad.

The ruins of Emperor Nero’s theater have been uncovered in Rome, Italian officials said. Photo from Soprintendenza Speciale Roma Contrary to legend, Nero probably did not play the fiddle during ...

The ruins of Emperor Nero’s theater have been uncovered in Rome, Italian officials said. Photo from Soprintendenza Speciale Roma Contrary to legend, Nero probably did not play the fiddle during ...

The Great Fire of Rome, a week-long July blaze that devastated the city in 64 A.D., is inexorably linked to the tale of one man: the infamous Emperor Nero.

The ruins of Emperor Nero’s theater have been uncovered in Rome, Italian officials said. Photo from Soprintendenza Speciale Roma Contrary to legend, Nero probably did not play the fiddle during ...

Contrary to legend, Nero probably did not play the fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome. But his passion for music — among other performing arts — appears to have been real, as supported by ...

The Roman elite despised Emperor Nero’s “artistic endeavors,” a historian said. Nero’s theater — where audience may have sat on ‘pain of death’ — discovered in Rome Skip to main ...