英语词汇fiddle while rome burns的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

fiddle while Rome burns. The origin of this old expression is an incident described by the Roman historian Suetonius, who said that Nero set fire to Rome in a.d 64 because he wanted to see what Troy had looked like when it burned centuries before. Suetonius added that Nero regarded the blaze with cynical de- tachment, singing his own composition “The Sack of Ilium” and playing the harp while flames consumed the city. Tacitus, a more reliable historian and one who, unlike Suetonius, lived in Nero’s time, says that the last of the Caesars was at his villa at Antium 50 miles away when Rome burned. However, it could be that Nero climbed the tower of Maecenus on the third day of the fire and recited Priam’s lament over the burning of Troy to musical accompaniment, as other accounts say. The tyrant did rebuild Rome in a much improved way, but he blamed the fire on the Christians to save his own skin and persecuted them with such fury that these first martyrs regarded him as an Antichrist (he is possibly the fantastic beast referred to as 666 in Rev. 13:11–18).

词汇	fiddle while rome burns
词源	fiddle while Rome burns. The origin of this old expression is an incident described by the Roman historian Suetonius, who said that Nero set fire to Rome in a.d 64 because he wanted to see what Troy had looked like when it burned centuries before. Suetonius added that Nero regarded the blaze with cynical de- tachment, singing his own composition “The Sack of Ilium” and playing the harp while flames consumed the city. Tacitus, a more reliable historian and one who, unlike Suetonius, lived in Nero’s time, says that the last of the Caesars was at his villa at Antium 50 miles away when Rome burned. However, it could be that Nero climbed the tower of Maecenus on the third day of the fire and recited Priam’s lament over the burning of Troy to musical accompaniment, as other accounts say. The tyrant did rebuild Rome in a much improved way, but he blamed the fire on the Christians to save his own skin and persecuted them with such fury that these first martyrs regarded him as an Antichrist (he is possibly the fantastic beast referred to as 666 in Rev. 13:11–18).
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