a.d. XIV Kal. Aug.
July 19 in Ancient Rome
The Great Fire of Rome breaks out
The fire that consumed Rome
disasterAD 64
Julian date · ≈ Jul 17 on our calendar
The great fire under Nero began among the shops at the Circus Maximus on 19 July 64, burned for days and left only four of Rome’s fourteen districts untouched.
fuere qui adnotarent XIIII Kal. Sextiles principium incendii huius ortum
Some noted that this fire began on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of Sextilis.
Background
Rome in AD 64 was a crowded city of narrow, winding streets and tall apartment blocks. Fires were common, but the one that began on 19 July was, in Tacitus' words, worse and more dreadful than any that had ever struck the city. Whether it was an accident or a crime of the emperor, he says, was uncertain, since authors gave both accounts per Tacitus.
The fire started in the part of the Circus next to the Palatine and Caelian hills, among shops full of flammable goods, and the wind drove it the whole length of the Circus. It swept through the low ground, then up the hills. Tacitus describes the terror: wailing women, the old and the very young, crowds dragging out the sick, people cut off by flames ahead and behind. Some men stopped others from fighting the fire, even threw torches, shouting that they had authority disputed. Nero was at Antium and returned only when the fire neared his palace.
After five days the fire was stopped at the foot of the Esquiline, then flared again. Of fourteen districts, four were untouched, three levelled and seven left with only half-burnt ruins. Ancient temples, Numa's palace and the shrine of Vesta burned. Some noted the fire began on the same day the Gauls had once burned Rome.
Ancient source: Tacitus, Annals 15.38–41 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 31°/19°C (88°/66°F) · rain 13% of days
Rome in JulyWater was precious: Rome's aqueducts fed public fountains, from which most…
Fields & crops
Harvest finished in the uplands; threshing and storage, stubble burned or grazed, and the first ploughing of fallow per Columella 11.2. Cato advises that olive groves be hoed and vines tied in summer, and that the threshing floor be ready before grain is brought in per Cato, Agr. 2, 91.
Courts & law
Courts sat less during the Ludi Apollinares (6–13 July); much elite business paused as senators left the hot city late Republic.
Senate & politics
Renamed from Quintilis in 44 BC for Julius Caesar, born in this month. Republican consular elections were often held in July late Republic. Caesar was born on 12 or 13 July disputed: sources differ on the day; after his death the month was renamed in his honour by a law of Mark Antony in 44 BC per Macrobius 1.12.34.
Military
Peak campaign season. On 15 July the equites paraded through Rome (transvectio equitum), revived by Augustus per Suetonius, Aug. 38.
Festivals & religion
Ludi Apollinares (6–13 July), founded during the war with Hannibal; the Poplifugia (5 July); the Lucaria in sacred groves (19 and 21 July); Neptunalia (23 July) with leafy shelters against the heat per Varro and Festus.
Daily life
Water was precious: Rome's aqueducts fed public fountains, from which most people carried water up the stairs of their apartment blocks per Frontinus, De aquis. Food spoiled quickly; those without kitchens bought cooked food at taverns and street stalls. Graffiti at Pompeii record prices for bread, wine and oil, and rents for rooms per Pompeian inscriptions. Martial jokes that he lives up three tall flights of stairs, a common lot for renters satire, Martial 1.117. The well-off escaped to villas; the poor had no such option.
Sources: Frontinus, De aquis · Suetonius, Augustus 38
All days in July →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Postume, semper.
“You say you'll live tomorrow, Postumus, always tomorrow.”
Martial, Epigrams 5.58 · translation ours (literal)
