I Don't Give an F Like the Fiddle

The Tacitus' breathless recollection really helps hammer home the desperate horror this kind of event conjures up. I even heard he laughed as he watched the city burn, and even publicly plucked his lyre. And so went the rumor mill. Now the fiddle was a much later addition to the story, as fiddles didn't exist in first century Rome. But was there anything to these rumors? Well Nero's response to the fire definitely seemed shady and opportunistic.