The Great Fire Of Rome Book Summary

The book The Great Fire of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins begins with the story of Nero and his life before power. As the book continues it shows Nero come to power and then slowly lose his mind. The book discusses the persecution of the Christians, and at one point focus’ on a 26 year old man named Joseph, who has become a Roman citizen, he meets a man named Paul who is on trial for being Christian and is waiting for the ruling on his case. Paul is taken away and Joseph finds his way to Rome and meets a Jewish actor who is loved by Nero, through this relationship Joseph becomes friends with Nero’s wife and with her help he tries to influence people with the Jewish religion. Then the great fire happens and the author shows two possibilities of what could have happened, with Nero starting the fire and with the fire starting by accident. Over the next couple of chapters there is talk over suspicions of who actually started the fire. Nero is a suspect and eventually convicted of starting the fire but Nero only saw this as a boost to his name. The story ends with a reflection on the good and the bad that Nero had done.

What the author wants the reader to take away from this book is that because of the great fire there were fatal political ramifications for Nero. The author builds suspense in the book by

Different aspects of the story were told by different people to give it more meaning and depth than if it had just been one perspective. For instance when one of the chapters was talking about the beginning of the persecution of the Christians the story was focused on Joseph. This gives the idea of the persecution a whole new perspective than if it had been focused on Nero like most of the story. The book also began before Nero rose to power, it was nice to have background on the main focus of the story. The Great Fire of Rome is a great book for anyone who is interested in the great fire or the history of emperor