When it comes to cruel and unusual punishments you could say the Romans took things to the
extreme.
A persecuted Christian or an unruly slave might just be executed by beheading, and while
that sounds like a tough kind of justice, the Romans might have thought it was merciful.
After all, the worst offenders might suffer the humiliation and agony of crucifixion.
Any sane person would have begged for beheading rather than be crucified.
Other offenders could suffer perhaps an even worse fate, and that was quite literally being
thrown to the wolves, or lions, or leopards, or even being squashed by an elephant.
And then there’s the punishment we’ll talk about today, and we’ll let you decide
where it stands in the rankings of Roman executions.
First of all, this show has nothing to do with the kind of firework you’ve heard of
that goes by the name of the Roman candle.
Those fireworks that fill the air with an explosion of stars don’t come from Rome,
but were created on the other side of the world in China.
Nonetheless, the Roman candle we are going to talk about today does relate to fire and
a form of entertainment.
Let us explain.
You might have heard of something called, “The Great Fire of Rome” and that is supposed
to have happened in 64 AD.
This destroyed large parts of Rome and entire neighborhoods went up in flames.
Nobody knows exactly how it started, but it’s generally thought strong winds carried the
flames through narrow streets lined with many timber dwellings.
The emperor at the time was Nero, a man who has gone down in history as perhaps Rome’s
most villainous character.
Some Roman historians wrote about how tyrannical and corrupt this man was, as well as deranged
at times.
Past and present historians disagree as to the validity of just how crazy this man was,
and also what part he had in the fire.
Some accounts of the fire come from Roman historians who weren’t actually there for
the thing, but those accounts are all that exist.
There is a possibility that Nero actually had arsonists start the fire so he could rebuild
parts of Rome in his own image.
If he really was a tyrannical ego-maniac that might make sense.
We have the saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” to kind of represent how this
man was far from the flames while his people suffered.
Violins weren’t even invented back then, but the phrase is just supposed to mean he
was playing music and having a good time as Rome went up in flames.
Maybe the fire was an accident or maybe Nero had it set or maybe some arsonists did it
who weren’t connected to anyone in power.
We really don’t know, but accounts tell us that Nero blamed minorities for the fire,
and they included Christians and Jews.
Some historians believed that Nero just punished people accused of being the fire starters,
and only years later were said to be Christians.
Someone was used as a scapegoat for burning down most of Rome and that could have been
these minorities.
Christian historians would certainly say it was people of their religion who were punished
for the fire, but again, it’s not all that clear.
The most talked about death was St. Peter, and some accounts have him being crucified.
He became a martyr by the hands of Nero but this was written years after the fact.
St. Paul in some accounts was beheaded after the fire, and in one legend his head bounced
three times and each time water erupted from the place it hit.
So, these were allegedly two of Nero’s victims after the fire according to some stories.
We apologize for not being able to tell you exactly what happened, but many things have
been written and historians and theologians will disagree over these matters today.
Some say Christians were never even discussed by Roman historians at the time, while others
say at the time of the fire it’s not clear Christians even thought of themselves as Christians.
A Roman historian named Tacitus wrote about Nero’s wrath after that fire, but again,
this was many years after the fact.
He wrote that a lot of Christians were rounded up and then interrogated, after which some
suffered the worst kind of death.
Being covered in animal skins and then being ripped apart by dogs was one of them.
That historian wrote, “Nero fastened guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures
on the Christians who were hated for their abominations.”
We might not have clarity as to exactly which people and groups were blamed, tortured and
executed after the fire, but most agree Nero did meter out some nasty punishments, and
finally, we come to the Roman Candle.
How this went down went something like this.
A person is sentenced to death but Nero wants the pain to last some time.
He also wants the spectacle to be a kind of entertainment.
So, he came up with a plan to take a person and cover them with a flammable material,
but not so flammable that the person would go up in flames very quickly.
Some sources state that the feet would be lit first.
The person is tied to a stake and the event happens in an imperial garden where Nero and
his friends can spectate.
Some years later Tacitus described some of the executions like this, “Those who confessed
were the first to be caught, then those who were accused by informers.
Those sentenced to death were also mocked: they were torn to pieces by dogs, after being
disguised as wild beasts, or they were crucified and set on fire at the end of the day, as
torches to illumine the night.”
This same account tells us that Nero put on these light shows for people as he walked
around the party dressed as a charioteer.
We are led to believe that this spectacle was not for the public good, but for his own
sick entertainment.
We might never know who started the fire or who was killed for it or even if Nero did
use people as torches.
There is a painting that depicts the event and that is called in English, “Nero’s
Torches”, although that wasn’t painted until 1876.
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