Rome Burns, Arson Suspected!
By Lucilla Salvius
Rumors are buzzing too loudly to be ignored today on July 23, 64 A.D. as the news spreads like wildfire about how Nero could actually be behind the fire that destroyed so much.
Since five days ago, a fire has been raging through Rome and left hundreds dead and thousands devastated. Although Rome has faced many fires before, none have been quite as destructive or powerful. Although it has been put out know, the skepticism of Roman citizens still remains and is now lingering around creating rumors. The reason behind these suspicions is that Nero’s claim on the cause of the fire seems very hard to believe. He claims that Christians purposely started the whole fire as a form of revenge. But knowing how Christians are, we can’t imagine that they would ever do something so cruel out of spite. Not only did this offend Christians, but also made us dislike Nero even more, as we are almost sure that he is blatantly lying, especially knowing what we already do about what kind of person Nero is.
Now, so much of Rome is destroyed. Many are dead and so much land and property has been reduced to nothing but ashes. This is much too cruel of a crime for Christians or any sane person to purposely commit. It seems it would almost be the “perfect crime” for Nero to commit. It will really take a long time for Rome to heal and recover from this. It would make sense if his motivation was his hate for Christians to blame them. Do you think Nero started the fire? Tell us your thoughts.
Emperor Constantine Moves the Empire's Capital
By Lucilla Salvius
This day in 330 B.C. marks the start of the Roman Empire’s capital being Constantinople as decided by Constantine for reasons he says will help Rome’s future.
For 432 years now, Rome has always been the capital of the Roman empire. This seems logical, right? Why would you want the capital of your empire to be outside of your city? Well this isn’t what Constantine thought. Reactions to Constantine’s decision have been very negative, although the consequences of this could very easily be positive or negative. Until now, Constantinople was known as Byzantium and was just a colony in Greece that was not of extreme importance. However, when moving the capital, Constantine thought it would be fitting to rename Byzantium after himself. Hence, the name Constantinople.
Now, not only did he completely rebuild the capital, but split it into two halves. So, technically Rome is the capital of the Western Roman Empire, but the Eastern (or Byzantine) Empire has Constantinople. So what motivated Constantine to split the Roman Empire into essentially two empires? He claims that Rome’s large and growing size played a big part in this decision. Disorganization was something he was afraid would happen and was also likely to happen which could lead to decline of the Empire. Also, over the past 200 or so years, the economy has been becoming noticeably more unstable. The same situation applies to Rome politically. However, Rome currently seems to be at it’s peak in urbanization. That’s just one way citizens have been going against this decision, as negativity was the more popular reaction. Opposers can’t really be blamed though, can they?
What are your thoughts on this matter? Was moving the capital a good move or not? Let us know.
