Timeline Friday 18 July 64

Events on Friday 18 July 64 1

• 64 Great Fire of Rome The Great Fire of Rome breaks out on the night of 18–19 July 64 AD in the Circus Maximus and burns for six days and seven nights, destroying three of Rome's fourteen districts entirely and damaging seven more. Of Rome's 1.5 million inhabitants, hundreds of thousands are left homeless. Nero opens his gardens as refugee camps and organises relief. The rumour that he played his lyre while Rome burned — the origin of "fiddling while Rome burns" — is almost certainly false; he was at Antium when the fire began.