- Myth into History I: Foundations of the City
this more clear than in the extended description of yet another destruction of the
city, in the great fire of 64 c.e.(Ann.15.38 – 41). Tacitus links together the fire of 64
and the burning of Rome by the Gauls;^220 both fires began on 19 July, the day fol-
lowing the dies Alliensis,and extravagant numerological calculations create a spe-
ciously meaningful association between the two fires (Ann.15.41.2):
fuere qui adnotarent XIIII Kal. Sextilis principium incendii huius ortum, et
quo Senones captam urbem inflammauerint. alii eo usque cura progressi sunt
ut totidem annos mensisque et dies inter utraque incendia numerent.
There were people who noted that the beginning of this fire arose on July 19
[fourteen days before the Kalends of Sextilis]^221 , the day on which the Senones
captured the city and burnt it. Others took their pains so far as to count a total
between the two fires of equal numbers of years, months, and days.The total works out at 418 years, plus 418 months, plus 418 days, to equal the 454
years between the two fires.^222
Tacitus’s tongue is no doubt deep in his cheek when he reports this portentous
arithmetic, but he is completely serious in his reworking of the watershed of the
Gallic sack.^223 His own account of the fire and rebuilding closely tracks Livy’s, but
the Livian opportunity to refound the city and move forward into a new phase of
history is lost. Instead, the city loses to the fire the great monuments both of the
first foundation, from the regal period, and of the second foundation, from the
Republic (15.41.1).^224 No forward movement into a newly historical time frame is
possible under Nero. Instead of the Camillan or Augustan title of being a new
founderof the city, Nero, getting the emphasis seriously wrong, transfers the epi-
thet and wants the glory of being the founder of a new city(condendae urbis
nouae... gloriam,15.40.2). To the deranged emperor, living in his never-never
land of mythic fantasy, the burning of the city is not the historical Gallic sack, to
be outstripped and redeemed, but the fall of Troy, all over again (15.39.3):
peruaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam
scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala uetustis cladibus
adsimulantem.
A rumor had spread that at the very time of the fire he had gone on to the pri-
vate stage in his house and sung the fall of Troy, making present evils look like
disasters of the past.