--- slug: the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof passed: 2026-11-02 by: ccr-81332fb3-8nrbtu wave, one independent agent on oversight/claims-pass.md (pre-deploy; reader check on local copies with AW_DIR; every source-record entry read against its kept copy and live source) checked: 256 confirmed: 234 wrong: 1 unverifiable: 0 observed: 21 stale: 0 --- # Claims pass: The Rumour That Grew a Roof Live page: not deployed yet; step 2 skipped. Reader check (pre-deploy, local copies): `AW_DIR= node verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs`, run with the verifier copied alone into a second empty directory: exit 0, 1174 passed, 0 failed. It printed "outside the repository: the kept-copy checks are skipped; quotes.json stands in for the sources". With `--mutate`: exit 1, 4652 passed, 27 failed, every planted mutant reported caught. Inside the repository (`node verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs`): exit 0, 1355 passed, 0 failed. The page prints no transcript of the verifier. Step 6 (sentence-only edits in a scratch copy, one at a time, run with AW_DIR): all 38 caught (exit 1, 5 to 11 checks failed each; the unmutated control passed 1174/0). The edits were number words and figures in prose ("seven sentences", "three of the five slips", "in two of them", "Two run against", "Within 15 years", "51 or 52", "1007 to 1014", "9 − 6 = 3", "19th of July", "eleventh century", "nine days", "the sixth day", "the last three", "fourteen regions", "Node 18", the years 1548, 1624, 1680, 1770, 1778, 1820, 1855, 1878, 1907, 2017, 2021, 2026, "15 March", "173-182", "nine questions", "All nine", "fetched on 2026-11-01", and three edits to the visible dek only: "AD 64", "all three", "Of the three"). Mutation sweep (`node $SP/wave-sweep.mjs the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof --jobs 2`): "417 mutated, 417 caught, 0 survived (text 0, meta 0, year 0)". `assay/sources.mjs the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof --online`: 83 FOUND, 1 PARTIAL, 108 NOT FOUND, 50 in the repository. All 108 NOT FOUND are archive.org page-image JPEGs, in which the tool cannot see text. This pass downloaded all 35 images, plus title pages, versos and Furneaux pp. [3]-[4], and read every transcription against them by eye, cropped and zoomed. The Greek of Dio 62.16.2, 62.17.1, 62.18.1-2 and Cary's note were checked accent by accent, and the roof apparatus also against Boissevain vol. III (archive.org OCR). The PARTIAL (Church and Brodribb 15.38) is Perseus's side-heading "GREAT FIRE AT ROME" printed inside the sentence. Every FOUND web source was re-fetched on 2026-11-02 (Perseus, Gutenberg, Cambridge plus Crossref, Kiwi Hellenist, word histories, History.com, Live Science, The Phrase Finder) and the quoted words, names and dates checked. ## Claims - CONFIRMED | Sequitur clades, forte an dolo principis incertum (nam utrumque auctores prodidere) | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=38 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.38: “38. Sequitur clades, forte an dolo principis incertum (nam utrumque auctores prodidere), sed omnibus quae huic urbi per violentiam ignium acciderunt gravior atque atrocior. initium in …” - CONFIRMED | A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=38 | the tool says PARTIAL because Perseus prints the side-heading GREAT FIRE AT ROME inside the sentence ("as authors have GREAT FIRE AT ROME given both accounts", live, 2026-11-02); with it removed the words are exact - CONFIRMED | Eo in tempore Nero Antii agens non ante in urbem regressus est quam domui eius, qua Palatium et Maecenatis hortos continuaverat, ignis propinquaret. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.39: “39. Eo in tempore Nero Antii agens non ante in urbem regressus est quam domui eius, qua Palatium et Maecenatis hortos continuaverat, ignis propinquaret. neque tamen sisti potuit quin e…” - CONFIRMED | Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.39: “[15.39] Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas. It could not,…” - CONFIRMED | neque tamen sisti potuit quin et Palatium et domus et cuncta circum haurirentur. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.39: “…rtos continuaverat, ignis propinquaret. neque tamen sisti potuit quin et Palatium et domus et cuncta circum haurirentur. sed solacium populo exturbato ac profugo campum Martis ac monumenta Agrippae, hortos quin etiam suo…” - CONFIRMED | It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.39: “…the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas. It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to…” - CONFIRMED | quae quamquam popularia in inritum cadebant, quia pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala vetustis cladibus adsimulantem. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.39: “…rumenti minutum usque ad ternos nummos. quae quamquam popularia in inritum cadebant, quia pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala vetus…” - CONFIRMED | These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.39: “… was reduced to three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage…” - CONFIRMED | pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.39: “…uam popularia in inritum cadebant, quia pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala vetustis cladibus adsimulantem.” - CONFIRMED | a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.39: “…ough popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing presen…” - CONFIRMED | cecinisse Troianum excidium | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.39: “… urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium, praesentia mala vetustis cladibus adsimulantem.” - CONFIRMED | sang of the destruction of Troy | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.39: “…emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.” - CONFIRMED | Sexto demum die apud imas Esquilias finis incendio factus | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.40: “40. Sexto demum die apud imas Esquilias finis incendio factus, prorutis per immensum aedificiis ut continuae violentiae campus et velut vacuum caelum occurreret. necdum positus metus a…” - CONFIRMED | At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of the Esquiline hill | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.40: “[15.40] At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of the Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a vast space, so that the violence of the fi…” - CONFIRMED | rursum grassatus ignis patulis magis urbis locis | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.40: “… positus metus aut redierat plebi spes: rursum grassatus ignis patulis magis urbis locis; eoque strages hominum minor, delubra deum et porticus amoenitati dicatae latius procidere. plusque infamiae id incendium habuit qu…” - CONFIRMED | But before people had laid aside their fears, the flames returned | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.40: “…as met by clear ground and an open sky. But before people had laid aside their fears, the flames returned, with no less fury this second time, and especially in the spacious districts of the city. Consequently, though th…” - CONFIRMED | quippe in regiones quattuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum quattuor integrae manebant, tres solo tenus deiectae: septem reliquis pauca tectorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semusta. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.40: “…mento suo appellandae gloriam quaerere. quippe in regiones quattuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum quattuor integrae manebant, tres solo tenus deiectae: septem reliquis pauca tectorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semusta.” - CONFIRMED | Rome, indeed, is divided into fourteen districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were levelled to the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few shattered, half-burnt relics of houses. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.40: “… a new city and calling it by his name. Rome, indeed, is divided into fourteen districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were levelled to the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few shattered, half…” - CONFIRMED | fuere qui adnotarent xiiii Kal. Sextilis principium incendii huius ortum | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=41 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.41: “…res meminerint quae reparari nequibant. fuere qui adnotarent xiiii Kal. Sextilis principium incendii huius ortum, et quo Senones captam urbem inflammaverint. alii eo usque cura progressi sunt ut totidem annos mensisque e…” - CONFIRMED | Some persons observed that the beginning of this conflagration was on the 19th of July | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=41 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.41: “Some persons observed that the beginning of this conflagration was on the 19th of July” - CONFIRMED | ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=44 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.44: “…famia quin iussum incendium crederetur. ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante p…” - CONFIRMED | Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.44: “…nflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace…” - CONFIRMED | habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=44 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); Tacitus, Annals, 15.44: “… obtulerat et circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens. unde quamquam adversus sontis et novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in saeviti…” - CONFIRMED | he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Church and Brodribb, 15.44: “… exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of c…” - CONFIRMED | incendit urbem tam palam | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n170_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 154, §1 (the margin 2 comes later, at "Per sex dies"): “incendit urbem tam palam, ut plerique consulares…” - CONFIRMED | he set fire to the city so openly | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n171_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ldings and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and firebrands, while…” - CONFIRMED | Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n172_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Suetonius, Nero, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ue memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat. Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans laetusque “flammae,” ut aiebat, “pulchritudine” Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit. 3 Ac ne non hinc quoque quantum …” - CONFIRMED | Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…noteworthy had survived from antiquity. Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas and exulting, as he said, in “the beauty of the flames,” he sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,” in his regular stage costume…” - CONFIRMED | Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n172_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 156, the margin 3 stands at the next sentence (Ac ne non hinc), so 38.2: “Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit.” - CONFIRMED | he sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,” in his regular stage costume. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 157, comma inside the curly quotes as printed: “he sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,” in his regular stage costume.” - CONFIRMED | in illo suo scaenico habitu | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n172_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Suetonius, Nero, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ut aiebat, “pulchritudine” Halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit. 3 Ac ne non hinc quoque quantum posset praedae et manubiarum invaderet, pollicitus cadaverum et ruderum gratuitam egestionem nemini ad reliq…” - CONFIRMED | in his regular stage costume | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,” in his regular stage costume. Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost h…” - CONFIRMED | decantavit | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n172_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Suetonius, Nero, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…alosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit. 3 Ac ne non hinc quoque quantum posset praedae et manubiarum invaderet, pollicitus cadaverum et ruderum gratuitam egestionem nemini ad reliquias rerum suarum” - CONFIRMED | he sang the whole of the | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…he said, in “the beauty of the flames,” he sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,” in his regular stage costume. Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while promising the removal of…” - CONFIRMED | Per sex dies septemque noctes ea clade saevitum est | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n170_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 154, the margin 2 stands at this line, so 38.2: “muro constructa erant. Per sex dies septemque noctes ea clade saevitum est” - CONFIRMED | For six days and seven nights destruction raged | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n171_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ire, because their walls were of stone. For six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the houses o…” - CONFIRMED | praeter immensum numerum insularum domus priscorum ducum arserunt | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n170_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Suetonius, Nero, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…orumque deversoria plebe compulsa. Tunc praeter immensum numerum insularum domus priscorum ducum arserunt hostilibus adhuc spoliis adornatae deorumque aedes ab regibus ac deinde Punicis et Gallicis bellis votae dedicatae…” - CONFIRMED | besides an immense number of dwellings, the houses of leaders of old were burned | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n171_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 38.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…r to monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the houses of leaders of old were burned, still adorned with trophies of victory, and the temples of the gods vowed and dedicated by the kin…” - CONFIRMED | afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n120_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Suetonius, Nero, 16.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… nullum non obsonii genus proponeretur; afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae; vetiti quadrigariorum lusus, quibus inveterata licentia passim vagantibus fallere ac furari per ioc…” - CONFIRMED | Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n121_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Rolfe, 16.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ry sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the Rolfe's note b on p. 110 (to 'could be fought'): This w…” - CONFIRMED | λάθρᾳ γάρ τινας ὡς καὶ μεθύοντας ἢ καὶ κακουργοῦντάς τι ἄλλως διαπέμπων | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n119_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 110, margin 2 at this sentence, so 62.16.2: “λάθρᾳ γάρ τινας ὡς καὶ μεθύοντας ἢ καὶ κακουργοῦντάς τι ἄλλως διαπέμπων” - CONFIRMED | Accordingly he secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk or engaged in other kinds of mischief, and caused them at first to set fire to one or two or even several buildings in different parts of the city | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n120_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.16.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ntry and his throne destroyed together. Accordingly he secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk or engaged in other kinds of mischief, and caused them at first to set fire to one or two or even several buildings i…” - CONFIRMED | ὁ Νέρων ἔς τε τὸ ἄκρον τοῦ παλατίου | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n123_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 114, margin 18 at "πάντων δὲ δὴ", so 62.18.1: “ὁ Νέρων ἔς τε τὸ ἄκρον τοῦ παλατίου,⁴ ὅθεν μάλιστα σύνοπτα…” - CONFIRMED | Nero ascended to the roof of the palace | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.18.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ter, were leaping into the very flames, Nero ascended to the roof of the palace, from which there was the best general view of the greater part of the conflagration, and assuming the lyre-player’s garb, he sang the “Capt…” - CONFIRMED | τὴν σκευὴν τὴν κιθαρῳδικὴν λαβὼν | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n123_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter, including the iota subscript of κιθαρῳδικὴν; Cary p. 114, 62.18.1: “καὶ τὴν σκευὴν τὴν κιθαρῳδικὴν λαβὼν ᾖσεν ἅλωσιν” - CONFIRMED | assuming the lyre-player’s garb | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.18.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… greater part of the conflagration, and assuming the lyre-player’s garb, he sang the “Capture of Troy,” as he styled the song himself, though to the eyes of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome. The calamity which t…” - CONFIRMED | ᾖσεν ἅλωσιν, ὡς μὲν αὐτὸς ἔλεγεν, Ἰλίου, ὡς δὲ ἑωρᾶτο, Ῥώμης. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n123_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter: breathings and accents checked one by one (ᾖσεν, ἅλωσιν, Ἰλίου, ἑωρᾶτο, Ῥώμης); Cary p. 114, 62.18.1; Boissevain vol. III prints the same words - CONFIRMED | he sang the “Capture of Troy,” as he styled the song himself, though to the eyes of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.18.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…n, and assuming the lyre-player’s garb, he sang the “Capture of Troy,” as he styled the song himself, though to the eyes of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome. The calamity which the city then experienced has no p…” - CONFIRMED | ἐπὶ πλείους καὶ ἡμέρας καὶ νύκτας | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n123_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dio, epitome of book 62, 62.17.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “17 Καὶ ταῦτα οὐκ ἐν μιᾷ μόνον ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ πλείους καὶ ἡμέρας καὶ νύκτας ὁμοίως ἐγίνετο. 18 [...] πάντων δὲ δὴ τῶν ἄλλων οὕτω διακειμένων, καὶ πολλῶν καὶ ἐς αὐτὸ τὸ πῦρ ὑπὸ τοῦ πάθους ἐμπηδώντων, ὁ Νέρων ἔς τε τὸ ἄκρον …” - CONFIRMED | it lasted for several days and nights alike | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.17.1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…not all take place on a single day, but it lasted for several days and nights alike. Many houses were destroyed for want of anyone to help save them, and many others were set on fire by the very men who came to lend assi…” - CONFIRMED | τῆς τε λοιπῆς πόλεως τὰ δύο που μέρη ἐκαύθη | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n125_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dio, epitome of book 62, 62.18.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “καὶ τὸ θέατρον τοῦ Ταύρου τῆς τε λοιπῆς πόλεως τὰ δύο που μέρη ἐκαύθη, καὶ ἄνθρωποι ἀναρίθμητοι διεφθάρησαν. [...] [end of the section:] —Xiph. 166, 17–169, 10 R. St.” - CONFIRMED | nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city were burned | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n126_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; tr. Cary, 62.18.2; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ide the first line: A.D. 64 Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city were burned, and countless persons perished. There was no curse that the populace did not invoke upon Nero, though they did not menti…” - CONFIRMED | τοῦ παλατίου R. Steph., τὰ παλάτια VC. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 115, foot: “⁴ τοῦ παλατίου R. Steph., τὰ παλάτια VC.” Boissevain vol. III (archive.org cassii-dionis-historiarum-romanarum-quae-supersunt-3, OCR) has the same lemma: “τοῦ παλατίου R. St, τὰ παλατια VC” - CONFIRMED | Xiph. 166, 17–169, 10 R. St. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n125_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 116, closing 62.18.5: “αὐτῶν τὸ σιτηρέσιον παρεσπάσατο.—Xiph. 166, 17–169, 10 R. St.” - CONFIRMED | The date of completion and publication of his various works rests on internal evidence. | https://archive.org/download/annalsoftacitus0001taci/page/n20_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, Annals vol. I (1896), p. 5; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “The date of completion and publication of his various works rests on internal evidence. [...] The ‘Histories’ must have appeared after the apotheosis of Nerva, but probably early i…” - CONFIRMED | This last work must have been completed when the conquests of Trajan had reached their highest point, in 868 or 869, A.D. 115 or 116 | https://archive.org/download/annalsoftacitus0001taci/page/n20_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, Annals vol. I (1896), p. 5; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…re the ‘Annals’ were even contemplated. This last work must have been completed when the conquests of Trajan had reached their highest point, in 868 or 869, A.D. 115 or 116, and before the retrocession under Hadrian.” - CONFIRMED | a manuscript in Lombard characters, generally assigned to the latter half of the eleventh century | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n3_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, Annals vol. II (1907), p. 1; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…s the second Medicean MS. of Tacitus is a manuscript in Lombard characters, generally assigned to the latter half of the eleventh century, and thought by Ritter to have been one of the many transcripts of works of ancien…” - CONFIRMED | contains all that we have of these later Books of the Annals | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n4_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux vol. II p. [2]: “and contains all that we have of these later Books of the Annals and the whole extant part of the Histories” - CONFIRMED | We owe it to Tacitus that any doubt is left on the subject. | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.38, p. 363; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “3. incertum. We owe it to Tacitus that any doubt is left on the subject. Suet. (Ner. 38) and Dio (62. 16, 1) follow unhesitatingly those authors who charged Nero with the crime; the former supp…” - CONFIRMED | a similar view is taken by the author of the ‘Octavia’ (831–833), and is followed by Orosius (7, 7); while Sulp. Severus (see on c. 40, 3) more closely follows Tacitus | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.38, p. 363; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…is incendia quibus cremavit urbem’; and a similar view is taken by the author of the ‘Octavia’ (831–833), and is followed by Orosius (7, 7); while Sulp. Severus (see on c. 40, 3) more closely follows Tacitus; who however…” - CONFIRMED | at least inclines to charge Nero with the second outbreak (c. 40, 3) | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.38, p. 363; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…re closely follows Tacitus; who however at least inclines to charge Nero with the second outbreak (c. 40, 3).” - CONFIRMED | Suet. (Ner. 38) and Dio (62. 18, 1), who affirm as a fact what Tacitus here gives as a rumour | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n520_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.39, p. 366; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…pso’. domesticam scaenam: cp. c. 33, 1: Suet. (Ner. 38) and Dio (62. 18, 1), who affirm as a fact what Tacitus here gives as a rumour, describe him as declaiming from the top of his palace, or from the tower of Maecenas …” - CONFIRMED | a votive inscription, not now extant | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n520_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.40, p. 366; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…his can be reconciled with the words of a votive inscription, not now extant, but connected by Lanciani with the colossal altar found near S. Andrea on the Quirinal (Gilbert, Top. 3. 35, note; C. I. L. vi. 1. 826), ‘quan…” - CONFIRMED | by supposing that the second outbreak, here mentioned by Tacitus, lasted three days | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n520_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.40, p. 366; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…ovem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus,’ by supposing that the second outbreak, here mentioned by Tacitus, lasted three days.” - CONFIRMED | Pliny also (N. H. 17. 1, 1, 5) speaks of ‘Neronis principis incendia quibus cremavit urbem’ | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux, note on 15.38, p. 363; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…he spectacle which Priam had witnessed. Pliny also (N. H. 17. 1, 1, 5) speaks of ‘Neronis principis incendia quibus cremavit urbem’; and a similar view is taken by the author of the ‘Octavia’ (831–833), and is followed b…” - CONFIRMED | published in 120 | https://archive.org/download/suetonius00rolfgoog/page/n10_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe, Suetonius vol. I (1914), p. xii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…nearly so, is the Lives of the Caesars, published in 120. It includes the biographies of twelve “Caesars,” from Julius to Domitian, and except for some inconsiderable lacunae, lacks only the first few chapters of the” - CONFIRMED | The codex Memmianus of the ninth century. Our oldest and best manuscript | https://archive.org/download/suetonius00rolfgoog/page/n20_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe, Suetonius vol. I (1914), p. xxii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…’homme are given in parentheses: M (A). The codex Memmianus of the ninth century. Our oldest and best manuscript, either a copy of the one sent to Servatus Lupus or closely related to it, apparently free from interpolati…” - CONFIRMED | The period of these labours may be roughly estimated as the years 200–222. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n14_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xi; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…he time occupied in composing the work. The period of these labours may be roughly estimated as the years 200–222.” - CONFIRMED | while they often repeat entire sentences of Dio verbatim, or nearly so (as may readily be seen by comparing extant portions of the histories with Zonaras or Xiphilinus), must, nevertheless, be regarded as essentially paraphrases | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n21_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xviii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… [...] The Epitomes, on the other hand, while they often repeat entire sentences of Dio verbatim, or nearly so (as may readily be seen by comparing extant portions of the histories with Zonaras or Xiphilinus), must, neve…” - CONFIRMED | For Books LXI–LXXX our chief authority is Xiphilinus | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n25_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xxii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “For Books LXI–LXXX our chief authority is Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who made an abridgment of Books XXXVI–LXXX at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071–78…” - CONFIRMED | Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who made an abridgment of Books XXXVI–LXXX at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071–78) | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n25_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xxii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…r Books LXI–LXXX our chief authority is Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who made an abridgment of Books XXXVI–LXXX at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071–78). Even in his time Books LXX and LXXI (Bo…” - CONFIRMED | his task was very carelessly performed | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n26_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xxiii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…as regards Dio’s divisions; furthermore his task was very carelessly performed. The epitome is found in at least sixteen Mss.; but all the rest are derived from one or the other of two fifteenth century Mss., Vaticanus 1…” - CONFIRMED | all the rest are derived from one or the other of two fifteenth century Mss., Vaticanus 145 and Coislinianus 320 | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n26_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xxiii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… is found in at least sixteen Mss.; but all the rest are derived from one or the other of two fifteenth century Mss., Vaticanus 145 and Coislinianus 320. Besides these two (abbreviated V and C), we have readings from an …” - CONFIRMED | 1551 R. Stephanus. Editio princeps of Xiphilinus. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n30_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary, Dio vol. I (1914), p. xxvii; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…oks XXXVI–LX. Based on a single Ms., P. 1551 R. Stephanus. Editio princeps of Xiphilinus. 1592 Leunclavius. Included Excerpta Ursiniana.” - CONFIRMED | quando urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; ILS 4914 (Dessau 1902), p. 249; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “quando urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus” - CONFIRMED | semel descripta | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dessau p. 249: “cippus ex lapide Tiburtino (VI 826 = 30837b cf. Huelsen Roem. Mitth. 1894 p. 95: semel descripta)”; the gloss "copied once" is fair for "transcribed once" - CONFIRMED | Similes lapides etiam in aliis urbis partibus fuisse videntur | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dessau, note to ILS 4914, p. 249; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…m. Mitth. 1894 p. 95: semel descripta). Similes lapides etiam in aliis urbis partibus fuisse videntur, certe unus eodem fere tenore inscriptus fuit saec. XVI ineunte ad S. Petri fabricam adductus, alius saec. XVII videtu…” - CONFIRMED | Scilicet cum ‘sexto die finis incendio factus’ esset, mox denuo erupit | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dessau, note 4 to ILS 4914, p. 249; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… Roem. Mitth. 1891 p. 117. — [...] — 4) Scilicet cum ‘sexto die finis incendio factus’ esset, mox denuo erupit (Tac. ann. 15, 40). — 5) A. 64. — [...]” - CONFIRMED | ad Neronis principis incendia quibus cremavit urbem, annis CLXXX postea cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps ille accelerasset etiam arborum mortem. | https://archive.org/download/naturalishistor00plingoog/page/n101_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Pliny, NH 17.5, ed. Jan, p. 46; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “… et de longissimo aevo arborum diximus, ad Neronis principis incendia quibus cremavit urbem, annis CLXXX postea cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps ille accelerasset etiam arborum mortem.” - CONFIRMED | ad Neronis principis incendia cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps ille adcelerasset etiam arborum mortem. | https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC/page/n83_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Pliny, NH 17.5, ed. Mayhoff, p. 66; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…et de longissimo aevo arborum diximus — ad Neronis principis incendia cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps ille adcelerasset etiam arborum mortem. Mayhoff's note at the foot of p. 66, last line (line 26): 26 incendia D.…” - CONFIRMED | 26 incendia D. incendia quibus cremauit urbem annis (clxxx add. v) postea ll. v. | https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC/page/n83_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Mayhoff, note to line 26, p. 66; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…the foot of p. 66, last line (line 26): 26 incendia D. incendia quibus cremauit urbem annis (clxxx add. v) postea ll. v.” - CONFIRMED | [quibus cremavit urbem annis postea] | https://archive.org/download/naturalhistory05plinuoft/page/n15_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Pliny, NH 17.5, ed. Rackham, p. 4; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “[quibus cremavit urbem annis postea] Note 4: Secl. Detlefsen. (Rackham's line otherwise runs, as in Mayhoff's text: 'ad Neronis principis incendia [...] cultu virides iuvenesque, ni…” - CONFIRMED | Secl. Detlefsen. | https://archive.org/download/naturalhistory05plinuoft/page/n15_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rackham, note 4, p. 4; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…us cremavit urbem annis postea] Note 4: Secl. Detlefsen. (Rackham's line otherwise runs, as in Mayhoff's text: 'ad Neronis principis incendia [...] cultu virides iuvenesque, ni princeps ille adcelerasset etiam” - CONFIRMED | they were in existence down to the period when the Emperor Nero set fire to the City, one hundred and eighty years after the time of Crassus | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=17:chapter=1 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); tr. Bostock and Riley, NH 17.1: “…gevity of trees, I would here add, that they were in existence down to the period when the Emperor Nero set fire to the City, one hundred and eighty years after the time of Crassus; being still green and with all the fre…” - CONFIRMED | an account of my uncle's death | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2811/pg2811.txt | live pg2811.txt (re-fetched 2026-11-02) line 3921, under "LXV -- To TACITUS" (line 3919): “YOUR request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death” - CONFIRMED | it was found afterwards to come from Mount Vesuvius | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2811/pg2811.txt | live pg2811.txt line 3946: “(but it was found afterwards to come from Mount Vesuvius)” - CONFIRMED | Plantagenet, I will; and, like thee, Nero, Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn. | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1500/pg1500.txt | live pg1500.txt (re-fetched 2026-11-02) lines 971-972 under "SCENE IV. Orleans." of Act I: “Plantagenet, I will; and, like thee, Nero, / Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.” - CONFIRMED | In Mynstrills habit stand before the Iudges | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; The Tragedy of Nero (1624), 3.3; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…neca, I was, and saw your Kingly Pupyll In Mynstrills habit stand before the Iudges [...] This was his singing part: his acting now. Seneca. Nay, even end here, for I have heard enough; I have a Fidler heard him, let me …” - CONFIRMED | I have a Fidler heard him, let me not See him a Player | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; The Tragedy of Nero (1624), 3.3; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…even end here, for I have heard enough; I have a Fidler heard him, let me not See him a Player, nor the fearefull voyce Of Romes great Monarch now command in Iest— Our Prince be Agamemnon in a Play! Bullen's note 2 (to '…” - CONFIRMED | Bullen’s note on the first word reads | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Bullen p. 51, note 2: “4to. I'd.” - CONFIRMED | Soft Musique. Enter Nero above alone with a Timbrell. | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n63_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; The Tragedy of Nero (1624), 3.4; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…res of ending Rome. [Exeunt. (Scene 4.) Soft Musique. Enter Nero above alone with a Timbrell. I, now my Troy lookes beautious in her flames; The Tyrrhene Seas are bright with Roman fires” - CONFIRMED | I, now my Troy lookes beautious in her flames; | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n63_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; The Tragedy of Nero (1624), 3.4; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…Enter Nero above alone with a Timbrell. I, now my Troy lookes beautious in her flames; The Tyrrhene Seas are bright with Roman fires” - CONFIRMED | The Original MSS. in the British Museum: HITHERTO UNPRINTED. | https://archive.org/download/poemsgeorgedani01danigoog/page/n9_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Grosart, title page (1878), vol. I; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “The Original MSS. in the British Museum: HITHERTO UNPRINTED.” - CONFIRMED | The 17th of November, 1680. | https://archive.org/download/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725/page/n92_w1200.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; A Collection of Debates (1725), p. [73]; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “The 17th of November, 1680.” - CONFIRMED | we may be reflected on, as Nero was, for being playing on his Fiddle when Rome was on Fire. | https://archive.org/download/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725/page/n99_w1200.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Silas Titus, in A Collection of Debates (1725), p. [80]; read from this page image, transcribed in the kept copy: “…For, if we should be perswaded thereto, we may be reflected on, as Nero was, for being playing on his Fiddle when Rome was on Fire. When we are in such Danger to have our Throats cut from within, to what purpose will it …” - CONFIRMED | The image of Nero actually playing an instrument during the Great Fire is not, in fact, found in ancient sources | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…saying inspired by classical antiquity. The image of Nero actually playing an instrument during the Great Fire is not, in fact, found in ancient sources: the first English reference belongs to Cooper's 1548 revision of E…” - CONFIRMED | where Nero is said to play a harp during the conflagration | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…n of Elyot's Latin–English Dictionary , where Nero is said to play a harp during the conflagration. In 1649 the royalist poet George Daniel applied the term ‘fiddle’, and the familiar modern form of the expression, as a …” - CONFIRMED | In 1649 the royalist poet George Daniel applied the term ‘fiddle’ | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…o play a harp during the conflagration. In 1649 the royalist poet George Daniel applied the term ‘fiddle’, and the familiar modern form of the expression, as a byword for a leader's neglect, was apparently coined in a 16…” - CONFIRMED | Trinarchodia. The Several Reigns of Richard II, of Henry IV and of Henry V (London, 1649) | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…ght 12 (1991), 421–55. 22 22 G. Daniel, Trinarchodia. The Several Reigns of Richard II, of Henry IV and of Henry V (London, 1649), 3.133, lines 163–4; R. A. Anselment, Loyalist Reserve. Patient Fortitude in the English C…” - CONFIRMED | was apparently coined in a 1680 English parliamentary speech by Silius Titus | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…on, as a byword for a leader's neglect, was apparently coined in a 1680 English parliamentary speech by Silius Titus. Information Type Research Article Information Greece & Rome , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , October 2021 , pp.…” - CONFIRMED | That Nero fiddled while Rome burned. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “… preface: ‘May it produce an amendment. That Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’ For rebellious colonists, see Plan of Re-Union between Great Britain and Her Colonies (London, 1778), 100: ‘were its proud cities on fire, the…” - CONFIRMED | Cassius Dio can’t be regarded as independent of the earlier two. | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “… ). There’s good agreement here, though Cassius Dio can’t be regarded as independent of the earlier two. We have to substitute an ancient concert kithara for the modern violin, but that should have been obvious all along…” - CONFIRMED | put on his gear for kithara performances | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…where the best view of the burning was, put on his gear for kithara performances, and sang the Sack of Ilion — or so he called it; obviously it was really a ‘sack of Rome’. Cassius Dio 62.18.1 And, just to be extra clear…” - CONFIRMED | We have to substitute an ancient concert kithara for the modern violin | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…rded as independent of the earlier two. We have to substitute an ancient concert kithara for the modern violin, but that should have been obvious all along. (For that matter, Gyles’ article suggests that the proverbial ‘…” - CONFIRMED | Nor does he ‘state clearly’ that it was unconfirmed. | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…doesn’t take the trouble to dismiss it. Nor does he ‘state clearly’ that it was unconfirmed. And ancient historians do not ‘agree that (Nero) reacted in a manner befitting an emperor’. Instead, these ‘mythbusters’ select…” - CONFIRMED | Henry VI part 1 (ca. 1591-1595) | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…e only in my name. Marlowe and others,¹ Henry VI part 1 (ca. 1591-1595), Act 1 Scene 4 I have a fiddler heard him (i.e. Nero), let me not see him a player ... Anon., The tragedy of Nero (1624), Act 3 Scene 3 ¹ Yes, reall…” - CONFIRMED | this appears to be the earliest occurrence of the exact phrasing, ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’ | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…s a lot older than 1820. It’s just that this appears to be the earliest occurrence of the exact phrasing, ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’. Earlier writers came up with similar ideas, just not the same wording — and like…” - CONFIRMED | Nero fiddled whilst Rome was burning. | https://wordhistories.net/2026/05/30/fiddle-while-rome-burns/ | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…is Courtiers, and burst out a laughing. Nero fiddled whilst Rome was burning.” - CONFIRMED | a great fire ravaged Rome for six days | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…dated: May 28, 2025 In July of 64 A.D., a great fire ravaged Rome for six days, destroying 70 percent of the city and leaving half its population homeless. According to a well-known expression, Rome’s emperor at the time…” - CONFIRMED | The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Rome while watching the city burn | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live History.com (re-fetched 2026-11-02): “The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Rome while watching the city burn”. Gainsford quoted the same article in 2017 with "destruction of Troy", so it has been edited since; the page quotes the current text and dates it (last updated 28 May 2025) - CONFIRMED | however, he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…n of Rome while watching the city burn; however, he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts. When the Great Fire broke out, Nero was at his villa at Antium, some 35 miles from Rome. Though he imme…” - CONFIRMED | Though he immediately returned and began relief measures | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…lla at Antium, some 35 miles from Rome. Though he immediately returned and began relief measures, people still didn’t trust him. Some even believed he had ordered the fire started, especially after he used land cleared b…” - CONFIRMED | Nero himself blamed the Christians (then an obscure religious sect) for the fire | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…e and its surrounding pleasure gardens. Nero himself blamed the Christians (then an obscure religious sect) for the fire, and had many arrested and executed. But while Nero may have been guilty of many things, the story …” - CONFIRMED | Nero raced back to Rome. | https://www.livescience.com/did-nero-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live Live Science (re-fetched 2026-11-02): “Nero raced back to Rome. He arranged emergency shelter…”, the paragraph attributes the account to Harold Drake. The quotation is exact; its grade is taken up in an added line below - CONFIRMED | he watched it from a tower while playing an instrument and singing about the destruction of Troy | https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fiddling-while-rome-burns.html | live page re-fetched 2026-11-02 (FOUND): “…o was responsible for the fire and that he watched it from a tower while playing an instrument and singing about the destruction of Troy. Others record this story merely as a rumour. By modern-day standards Nero certainl…” - CONFIRMED | Tacitus, Annals 15.38-44, Latin text ed. C. D. Fisher (Oxford, 1906), as encoded by the Perseus Digital Library | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=38 | live page: “Annales ab excessu divi Augusti. Cornelius Tacitus. Charles Dennis Fisher. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1906. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License” - MINOR | Tacitus, Annals, tr. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, as encoded by the Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 3.0 US) | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=38 | translators right, but the Church and Brodribb pages (1999.02.0078, chapters 38, 39, 40 re-fetched 2026-11-02) carry no licence line at all, only “Complete Works of Tacitus… Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. … reprinted 1942.”; the CC BY-SA 3.0 US line is on the Latin (0077) and Bostock-Riley (0137) pages, not this one. The kept copy's EDITION header quotes a licence line this page does not show - CONFIRMED | Suetonius, with an English translation by J. C. Rolfe (Loeb Classical Library), vol. I (1914), pp. xii and xxii, and vol. II (first printed 1914; the scan read is the 1920 reprint) | https://archive.org/details/suetonius01rolfgoog | title pages read: vol. I (suetonius00rolfgoog n1) “IN TWO VOLUMES I … MCMXIV”; vol. II verso (suetonius01rolfgoog n8) “First printed 1914 / Reprinted 1920”. IA metadata (vol. 2, 1920 for both items) is wrong for vol. I; the page follows the printed pages - CONFIRMED | Dio’s Roman History, tr. E. Cary, vol. VIII (Loeb Classical Library, 1925), pp. 110-117 and 303 | https://archive.org/details/diosromanhistory08cassuoft | title page (n6): “DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY … IN NINE VOLUMES VIII … MCMXXV”; pp. 110-117 and 303 read. Translator credit taken up in an added line below - CONFIRMED | Dio’s Roman History, tr. E. Cary, vol. I (Loeb Classical Library, 1914), Introduction | https://archive.org/details/diosromanhistory01cassuoft | title page (n6): “IN NINE VOLUMES I … THE MACMILLAN CO. MCMXIV”; pp. xi, xviii, xxii, xxiii, xxvii read - CONFIRMED | H. Furneaux, The Annals of Tacitus, vol. I, second edition (Oxford, 1896), p. 5 | https://archive.org/details/annalsoftacitus0001taci | IA metadata: "The annals of Tacitus", 1896, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press; p. 5 read from the image - CONFIRMED | H. Furneaux, The Annals of Tacitus, vol. II, second edition revised by H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher (Oxford, 1907), pp. 1-2, 363 and 366 | https://archive.org/details/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm | preface (n2) read: “The late Professor Pelham undertook… the historical revision; the writer of this preface undertook the critical revision… C. D. F. March 1907.”; pp. [1]-[2], 363, 366 read - CONFIRMED | H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, vol. II part 1 (Berlin, 1902), no. 4914, p. 249 | https://archive.org/details/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft | title page (n6): “INSCRIPTIONES LATINAE SELECTAE … HERMANNUS DESSAU. VOL. II. PARS I. BEROLINI APUD WEIDMANNOS MCMII.” (IA metadata says 1892, the date of vol. I); no. 4914 on p. 249 - CONFIRMED | Pliny, Naturalis Historia, ed. L. Jan, vol. III (Leipzig: Teubner; title page dated 1878), p. 46 | https://archive.org/details/naturalishistor00plingoog | title page (n4): “VOL. III. LIBB. XVI—XXII. LIPSIAE SUMPTIBUS ET TYPIS B. G. TEUBNERI. MDCCCLXXVIII.” (IA metadata says 1875); p. 46 read - CONFIRMED | Pliny, Naturalis Historia, ed. C. Mayhoff, vol. III (Leipzig: Teubner, 1892), p. 66 | https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC | IA metadata: “post Ludovici Iani obitum recognovit…”, 1892, Teubner; p. 66 read - CONFIRMED | Pliny, Natural History, vol. V, ed. and tr. H. Rackham (Loeb Classical Library, first printed 1950; the scan read is the 1961 reprint), p. 4 | https://archive.org/details/naturalhistory05plinuoft | title page (n6) “VOLUME V LIBRI XVII-XIX BY H. RACKHAM … MCMLXI”; verso (n7) “First printed 1950 / Reprinted 1961” (IA metadata 1938 is vol. I's date) - CONFIRMED | The Natural History of Pliny, tr. J. Bostock and H. T. Riley (London, 1855), book 17, chapter 1 | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=17:chapter=1 | live page: “The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock… H.T. Riley… London. Taylor and Francis… 1855. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License” - CONFIRMED | Letters of Pliny, tr. W. Melmoth, revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet, the letter to Tacitus headed LXV, Project Gutenberg eBook 2811 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2811 | live pg2811.txt header: “Translator: William Melmoth”, “Revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet”; the letter headed “LXV -- To TACITUS” at line 3919 - CONFIRMED | Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 1, act 1, scene 4, Project Gutenberg eBook 1500 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1500 | live pg1500.txt: “Title: King Henry VI, Part 1”; the lines fall under “SCENE IV. Orleans.” of ACT I - CONFIRMED | The Tragedy of Nero (quarto, 1624), in A. H. Bullen, A Collection of Old English Plays, vol. I (London, 1882), pp. 51 and 55 | https://archive.org/details/acollectionolde00bullgoog | IA metadata “A collection of old English plays”, 1882, London: Wyman & sons; pp. 51 and 55 read; the imprint 1624 is from Bullen's reprint (kept copy, OCR) and agrees with Gainsford's "(1624)" - CONFIRMED | The Poems of George Daniel, ed. A. B. Grosart, vol. I (printed for private circulation, 1878), title page | https://archive.org/details/poemsgeorgedani01danigoog | title page read: “IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. Printed for Private Circulation Only. 1878.” - CONFIRMED | A Collection of Debates in the House of Commons, in the Year 1680 (London, 1725), pp. [73]-[80] | https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725 | pp. [73] and [80] read from the images; IA metadata “A collection of debates in the House of Commons, in the year 1680…”, 1725 - CONFIRMED | A. A. Barrett, Fiddling while Rome burns: the aetiology of a familiar English expression, Greece & Rome 68.2 (2021), 173-182 | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383521000012 | Crossref: Anthony A. Barrett, vol. 68, issue 2, pp. 173-182, 2021-10; landing page “Greece & Rome, Volume 68, Issue 2, October 2021, pp. 173 - 182” - CONFIRMED | P. Gainsford, Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned?, Kiwi Hellenist, 10 April 2017 | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live: “Kiwi Hellenist: Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned?”, “10 April 2017”, “Posted by Peter Gainsford” - CONFIRMED | P. Tréguer, to fiddle while Rome burns: meaning and origin, word histories (2026) | https://wordhistories.net/2026/05/30/fiddle-while-rome-burns/ | live: title “‘to fiddle while Rome burns’: meaning and origin”, byline Pascal Tréguer, JSON-LD datePublished 2026-05-30 - CONFIRMED | History Staff, Did Nero Really Fiddle While Rome Burned?, HISTORY (A&E Television Networks), published 20 November 2012, last updated 28 May 2025 | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live: “History Staff … Published: November 20, 2012 Last Updated: May 28, 2025”; footer “A&E Television Networks, LLC” - CONFIRMED | C. Q. Choi, Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?, Live Science, 10 September 2022 | https://www.livescience.com/did-nero-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live: “By Charles Q. Choi Published 10 September 2022”; JSON-LD datePublished 2022-09-10 - CONFIRMED | G. Martin, Fiddling while Rome burns, The Phrase Finder, last updated 21 May 2026 | https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fiddling-while-rome-burns.html | live: h1 “Fiddling while Rome burns”; “Last updated 21 May 2026 About the author Gary Martin” - CONFIRMED | Jan, Teubner, vol. III, p. 46 (title page dated 1878) | https://archive.org/details/naturalishistor00plingoog | p. 46 at the head of page image n101; title page MDCCCLXXVIII - CONFIRMED | Mayhoff, Teubner, vol. III, p. 66 (1892) | https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC | p. 66 at the head of page image n83; 1892 - CONFIRMED | Rackham, Loeb, vol. V, p. 4 (first printed 1950; the scan read is the 1961 reprint) | https://archive.org/details/naturalhistory05plinuoft | p. 4 at the foot of page image n15; verso “First printed 1950 / Reprinted 1961” - CONFIRMED | Three ancient historians say what Nero did while Rome burned in AD 64 | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | Cary p. 115 margin “A.D. 64” (image); Dessau note 5 to ILS 4914 “A. 64.” (image); Furneaux p. 366 running head “[A. D. 64” - CONFIRMED | all three have him sing; none says he played | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | cecinisse Troianum excidium (Tacitus 15.39, C&B "sang"), decantavit (Suetonius 38.2, Rolfe "he sang", image), ᾖσεν (Dio 62.18.1, Cary "he sang", image); no verb of playing in any of the three chapters, Latin, Greek or English (read here, including Cary p. 117 and the Greek of p. 116). Dio's citharode's gear is the contested point and the page shows Gainsford's contrary reading - CONFIRMED | Of the three, only Tacitus puts him at Antium when the fire began | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.39 “Eo in tempore Nero Antii agens”; no Antium in Suetonius 38 (pp. 154-157 read) or in Dio 62.16-18 (pp. 110-117 read, including 62.18.3-5 on pp. 116-117, which the kept copy omits). Scoped to the three: Sulpicius Severus 2.29.1 also has Antium - CONFIRMED | he gives the song as a rumour | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus page re-fetched 2026-11-02 and kept copy agree (the tool's FOUND); : “quia pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium” - CONFIRMED | Suetonius and Dio state it as fact and add a tower, a stage costume and a palace roof | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n172_w1400.jpg | Suetonius 38.2 “e turre Maecenatiana”, “in illo suo scaenico habitu” (image); Dio 62.18.1 “ἔς τε τὸ ἄκρον τοῦ παλατίου”, Cary “to the roof of the palace”, “the lyre-player's garb” (image) - CONFIRMED | Dio’s account reaches us in a monk’s abridgment | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n25_w1400.jpg | Cary vol. I p. xxii (image): “For Books LXI–LXXX our chief authority is Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who made an abridgment…”; vol. VIII running head “EPITOME OF BOOK LXII” (image). Cary p. xxii also names Zonaras as a lesser witness for Books XLIV–LXVII; the dek's wording does not claim Xiphilinus is the only one - CONFIRMED | The fiddle is English | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | Barrett abstract (live): “The image of Nero actually playing an instrument during the Great Fire is not, in fact, found in ancient sources: the first English reference belongs to Cooper's 1548 revision…”; “In 1649 the royalist poet George Daniel applied the term ‘fiddle’” - CONFIRMED | the popular debunk gets Tacitus wrong too | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | History.com (live): “Tacitus wrote that Nero was rumored to have sung about the destruction of Rome…; however, he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts”, against Tacitus 15.39 “Troianum excidium” and no witness word in 15.38-44 - CONFIRMED | Dio in a book we read in the abridgment made in the eleventh century by Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n25_w1400.jpg | Cary vol. I p. xxii (image): “Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople… at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071–78)”; 1071-78 lies in the eleventh century - CONFIRMED | This page reads three ancient narratives of the fire. | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | a statement of scope, not of survival; Furneaux p. 363 (image) names Pliny, the Octavia, Orosius and Sulpicius Severus as other tellers, and the page quotes him saying so - CONFIRMED | They are not the only ones: Furneaux, after naming the writers who charged Nero with the fire, adds that | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux p. 363, note on 15.38: “Suet. (Ner. 38) and Dio (62. 16, 1) follow unhesitatingly those authors who charged Nero with the crime… and a similar view is taken by the author of the ‘Octavia’ (831–833)…” - CONFIRMED | Cary prints the chapters on the fire under the running head EPITOME OF BOOK LXII | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | running head “EPITOME OF BOOK LXII” on pp. 111, 115 and 117 (images n120, n124, n126) - OBSERVED | Each column lights the words that answer it, in the Latin or Greek with a public-domain English translation under it, and says how that writer holds it. | recreated: node tools/render.cjs (headless Chromium, page served from the repository copy) | each of the three columns shows the original words, a public-domain English translation (Church and Brodribb; Rolfe 1914; Cary 1925) and a tag; the nine chipReadout sentences agree with the table - CONFIRMED | The earliest writer, Tacitus, keeps the cause open, puts Nero at Antium, and gives the song, and the stage it was sung on, as rumour. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=38 | Tacitus 15.38 “forte an dolo principis incertum”; 15.39 “Nero Antii agens”, “pervaserat rumor… inisse eum domesticam scaenam et cecinisse Troianum excidium” (live Perseus) - CONFIRMED | The two later writers state as fact every detail of the performance, where he stood, what he wore and what he sang, which Tacitus either reports as rumour or does not give. | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n520_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux p. 366: “Suet. (Ner. 38) and Dio (62. 18, 1), who affirm as a fact what Tacitus here gives as a rumour”; the tower, costume and song read in Suetonius 38.2 and Dio 62.18.1 - CONFIRMED | Furneaux’s commentary on the Annals, read here in the second edition revised by Pelham and Fisher (1907), puts it in one line | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n2_w1400.jpg | preface page image n2 read: revision by “The late Professor Pelham” (historical) and the writer, signed “C. D. F. March 1907”; the notes on pp. 363 and 366 are unbracketed and uninitialed, so Furneaux's - CONFIRMED | He adds that Tacitus himself | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux p. 363: “while Sulp. Severus (see on c. 40, 3) more closely follows Tacitus; who however at least inclines to charge Nero with the second outbreak (c. 40, 3).” The "who" is Tacitus - CONFIRMED | The note’s first words, τοῦ παλατίου, of the palace, are the reading printed by R. Stephanus; where they stand, the two manuscripts V and C have τὰ παλάτια. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | Cary p. 115 n. 4 (image) “τοῦ παλατίου R. Steph., τὰ παλάτια VC.”; R. Stephanus printed the editio princeps of Xiphilinus (Cary vol. I p. xxvii, image); V and C named on p. xxiii (image). Boissevain vol. III apparatus line 18 (archive.org OCR): “τοῦ παλατίου R. St, τὰ παλατια VC” - CONFIRMED | So the top, τὸ ἄκρον, which Cary renders roof, is in the manuscripts; what differs is the form of the word for palace. | https://archive.org/details/cassii-dionis-historiarum-romanarum-quae-supersunt-3 | an inference from the apparatus, checked against Boissevain's fuller one (OCR, fetched 2026-11-02): it records even “ἐγίνετο VC, ἐγένετο R. St.” for 17.1 and “τοιούτων V, τῶν C”, yet has nothing at τὸ ἄκρον, only “18 τοῦ παλατίου R. St, τὰ παλατια VC”. So τὸ ἄκρον stands in V and C - CONFIRMED | Church and Brodribb print | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=40 | live Perseus 0078 15.40: “At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of the Esquiline hill”; Latin 15.40 “Sexto demum die” - CONFIRMED | The only costume of Nero's in these chapters is the charioteer's dress he wore at his games after the fire (15.44). | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44 | Annals 15.38-44 read in full (kept Latin and English, matching live Perseus): the only dress of Nero's is 15.44 “habitu aurigae”, “in the dress of a charioteer”, at his show for the punishments - CONFIRMED | Nero 16.2 lists the punishment of Christians among his measures and does not connect it with the fire. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n120_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 110, Nero 16.2 (margin 2): a list of measures, “afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae”, with no word of the fire in 16.2 (16.1's fire-proof porches are a different measure) - CONFIRMED | Of the three, only Tacitus ties the punishment to the fire. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44 | Tacitus 15.44 (live): “ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos… quos… vulgus Christianos appellabat”; Suetonius 16.2 unconnected; Dio 62.16-18 read in full (pp. 110-117) and never mentions Christians - CONFIRMED | it has him watching from the tower of Maecenas | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 157: “Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas”; Nero 38.1-3 gives no location for the start - CONFIRMED | it has him in Rome, climbing to the top of the palace | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 115: “Nero ascended to the roof of the palace” - CONFIRMED | The verb takes the song as its object, and Church and Brodribb render it sang. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.39 “cecinisse Troianum excidium”, object the song; Church and Brodribb: “sang of the destruction of Troy” (live Perseus) - CONFIRMED | The verb takes the song as its object, and Rolfe renders it sang. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe p. 157: “he sang the whole of the “Sack of Ilium,””; Latin “Halosin Ilii… decantavit” - CONFIRMED | the citharode's gear, which Cary renders garb | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n123_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 114 “τὴν σκευὴν τὴν κιθαρῳδικὴν λαβὼν”, p. 115 “assuming the lyre-player’s garb” - OBSERVED | A tag of silence means silence in the chapters named | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | part D ran in the repository: 1355 passed, 0 failed. Read by eye here as well: the silences hold for the full chapters, Dio 62.18.3-5 included (pp. 116-117) - OBSERVED | no word for Antium in Suetonius’s chapter 38 or Dio’s 62.16-18 | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | the test passes; its Dio text stops at 62.18.2, but Cary pp. 116-117 (62.18.3-5, images) have no Antium either, so the claim holds for the whole range - OBSERVED | no verb of playing in the three accounts, in Latin, in the Greek read here or in their English, and no instrument noun but the lyre of Cary’s lyre-player’s garb | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | the tests pass; Cary pp. 116-117 (62.18.3-5, images) add no instrument and no verb of playing, so the claim holds for the whole range - WRONG | no word of report, such as rumour or it is said, in Suetonius’s chapter 38 or in Dio’s 62.16-18 (Cary’s English, and the Greek read here), where Tacitus has rumor | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n126_w1400.jpg | Cary p. 117, 62.18.4 (image): “And when Nero, by way of encouraging them, reported that these verses could not be found anywhere, they dropped them and proceeded to repeat another oracle, which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline prophecy”. “reported” is in the verifier's own list (REPORT_EN has \breported\b); the test passes only because its Dio text, the kept OCR excerpt, ends at 62.18.2 (“countless persons perished”). True for Suetonius 38 and for Dio 62.16.1-62.18.2, not for 62.16-18 as stated - OBSERVED | no costume of Nero’s there but the charioteer’s dress of the games | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | the DRESS tests pass on the full kept text of 15.38-44, which matches live Perseus - OBSERVED | A reader’s run outside the repository cannot make these tests, because the full chapters are not shipped with the page. | recreated: AW_DIR= node verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs from an empty directory | it printed “outside the repository: the kept-copy checks are skipped; quotes.json stands in for the sources” and ran 1174 checks, against 1355 inside the repository - OBSERVED | it runs only where the full chapters are kept, inside the site’s own repository, so a reader’s run cannot make it | recreated: the same run outside the repository | the whole-chapter tests are skipped outside; the page's search runs over quotes.json only - OBSERVED | His chapters on the fire have no word for a witness, in the Latin or in Church and Brodribb’s English; the checker searches both. | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | the WITNESS tests pass; Tacitus 15.38-44 read in full here in Latin and English: nothing for a witness or for confirming (15.44 "indicio", on their information, is an informer's evidence, not a witness) - CONFIRMED | Some, Tacitus says, noted the day it began | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=41 | live Perseus 15.41: “fuere qui adnotarent xiiii Kal. Sextilis principium incendii huius ortum”; C&B “Some persons observed that the beginning of this conflagration was on the 19th of July” - CONFIRMED | He died in the eruption of Vesuvius, which Cary’s margin to Dio dates A.D. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n312_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 303 margin “A.D. 79” beside the page that narrates the eruption (“Mt. Vesuvius stands over against Neapolis…”), with no other margin date before it; the death from Pliny the Younger's letter (Gutenberg 2811, live) - CONFIRMED | Pliny tells how long the lotus trees at the orator Crassus’s house lived: until Nero’s fires | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=17:chapter=1 | Jan p. 46 (image): “Crassus orator fuit in primis nominis Romani… addicere se respondit exceptis sex arboribus… eae fuere lotoe… duraveruntque… ad Neronis principis incendia”; Bostock and Riley 17.1 (live) “These trees were of the lotus kind” - CONFIRMED | Oldest copy of Suetonius | https://archive.org/download/suetonius00rolfgoog/page/n20_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe vol. I p. xxii: “M (A). The codex Memmianus of the ninth century. Our oldest and best manuscript” - MINOR | Only source for Tacitus, Annals 11-16 | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n4_w1400.jpg | the excerpt says what the manuscript contains (“contains all that we have of these later Books of the Annals”, p. [2], image), not that it is the only source. Furneaux goes on (pp. [2]-[4], images n4-n6, read here): “Many other manuscripts of this portion of the works of Tacitus exist… Many are known not to have been direct transcripts of the Medicean”; “An alternative theory, that these MSS. were not derived from the Medicean, but from some other old MS. coordinate with it… has been adopted by some editors, notably by Walther”; “Recent editors, however, have generally held that all the other MSS. are ultimately derived from the Medicean”. He keeps "the sole source" for the first Medicean. The ladder states as settled what the cited editor reports as the general view - CONFIRMED | The two manuscripts the other copies derive from | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n26_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary vol. I p. xxiii: “The epitome is found in at least sixteen Mss.; but all the rest are derived from one or the other of two fifteenth century Mss., Vaticanus 145 and Coislinianus 320” - CONFIRMED | First printed edition of the epitome | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n30_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary vol. I p. xxvii, EDITIONS: “1551 R. Stephanus. Editio princeps of Xiphilinus.” - CONFIRMED | Cary prints his reading of the word for palace, not the manuscripts’ | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | Cary p. 114 prints τοῦ παλατίου; p. 115 n. 4 “τοῦ παλατίου R. Steph., τὰ παλάτια VC.” (images); Boissevain the same - OBSERVED | years after the fire | recreated: node --input-type=module (engine.ladderReadout for i = 0..9) | readouts: 115-64 = 51, 116-64 = 52; 120-64 = 56; 200-64 = 136, 222-64 = 158; 1071-64 = 1007, 1078-64 = 1014; 1551-64 = 1487; 79-64 = 15. Redone by hand, all right - CONFIRMED | Gainsford, who defends the story as ancient, still says | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live: “it is entirely legitimate and true to state that the story that ‘Nero fiddled (or rather played the lyre) while Rome burned’ is an ancient one”; and “There’s good agreement here, though Cassius Dio can’t be regarded as independent of the earlier two.” - CONFIRMED | The two who make it fact wrote later, and the latest, with the people leaping into the flames, the citharode’s gear and the palace roof, comes to us through an eleventh-century abridgment. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | Cary p. 115 (image): “many, crazed by the disaster, were leaping into the very flames, Nero ascended to the roof of the palace… assuming the lyre-player’s garb”; Dio dated 200–222 (vol. I p. xi), Xiphilinus 1071-78 (p. xxii) - CONFIRMED | The day strip puts Nero’s return somewhere in the first phase, as Tacitus’s order of events implies (his house burns before the first phase ends), and on no particular day, because Tacitus gives none. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.39 has the house burn (“It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house”) and 15.40 then opens “Sexto demum die… finis incendio factus”; the page calls the placement an implication of the order of events and gives no day, as Tacitus gives none - CONFIRMED | The same sentence brings him back while the city burned | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus 15.39: “non ante in urbem regressus est quam domui eius… ignis propinquaret”, C&B “did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house” - CONFIRMED | Counting a.d. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=41 | a.d. XIIII Kal. Sextiles counted back inclusively from 1 August: 31 + 2 − 14 = 19, July 19, as Church and Brodribb print (“on the 19th of July”, live). Recomputed by hand - CONFIRMED | Tacitus gives no length for that second outbreak. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=40 | Tacitus 15.40 read in full: “rursum grassatus ignis patulis magis urbis locis; eoque strages hominum minor…” with no number of days for the second outbreak - CONFIRMED | Domitian dedicated a fire-altar and the precinct around it, and one of the stones that marked out the precinct | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; ILS 4914, p. 249: “haec area, intra hanc definitionem cipporum clausa veribus, et ara quae est inferius, dedicata est ab imp. Caesare Domitiano Aug. Germanico ex voto suscepto… incendiorum arcendorum causa”; commentary “cippus ex lapide Tiburtino”, note 1 “Hanc ipsam aream cippis definitam et in medio aram repperrerunt a. 1888” - CONFIRMED | that is, similar stones seem to have stood in other parts of the city | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dessau p. 249: “Similes lapides etiam in aliis urbis partibus fuisse videntur”; the translation is fair - CONFIRMED | Dessau ties its nine days to Tacitus’s second outbreak | https://archive.org/download/inscriptioneslat21dessuoft/page/n258_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Dessau note 4 (to novem): “Scilicet cum ‘sexto die finis incendio factus’ esset, mox denuo erupit (Tac. ann. 15, 40).” - CONFIRMED | Nipperdey, Furneaux reports, reconciled the two | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n520_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux p. 366, note 8 on Sexto: “Nipp. points out that this can be reconciled with the words of a votive inscription… by supposing that the second outbreak, here mentioned by Tacitus, lasted three days.” - CONFIRMED | By Tacitus’s account Nero came back while the fire was still advancing on his house; it then consumed the house, and it burned on, to the sixth day and then again. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.39 “domui eius… ignis propinquaret. neque tamen sisti potuit quin et Palatium et domus et cuncta circum haurirentur”; 15.40 “Sexto demum die… rursum grassatus ignis” (live Perseus) - CONFIRMED | On which day he came back, Tacitus does not say. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.38-41 read in full: no day is given for Nero's return - OBSERVED | Here are seven sentences from three of them, History.com, Live Science and The Phrase Finder | public/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/fire.json | debunks: six, rome, eye, imm (History.com, 5 with christ), raced (Live Science), instr (The Phrase Finder): seven sentences from three sites - CONFIRMED | It is Dio, writing later, whose onlookers took the song for the capture of Rome. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Cary p. 115: “though to the eyes of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome”; Greek “ὡς δὲ ἑωρᾶτο, Ῥώμης”. Tacitus has Troianum excidium - CONFIRMED | The rumour is of a song about Troy, sung on a private stage. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus 15.39: “the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy” - CONFIRMED | Tacitus calls it a rumour and moves on. | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | the rumour sentence ends 15.39; 15.40 opens with the end of the first phase. Gainsford (live) the same: “he certainly doesn’t take the trouble to dismiss it” - CONFIRMED | Six is one of the counts. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n170_w1400.jpg | Suetonius 38.2 “Per sex dies septemque noctes” (image); Tacitus 15.40 sixth day, then a second outbreak; ILS 4914 novem dies (image). Six is one count among these - CONFIRMED | He sings, in costume; no instrument is named, in Latin or in English. | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n173_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Rolfe pp. 154-157, Nero 38 complete in Latin and English: no instrument, no verb of playing - CONFIRMED | he hurried back, in two of them, when Tacitus says he did not come back until the fire approached his house | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | History.com (live) “Though he immediately returned”, Live Science (live) “Nero raced back to Rome.”, against Tacitus 15.39 “non ante… regressus est quam”. The direction is the page's labelled reading; the Live Science grade itself is taken up in an added line - CONFIRMED | and Tacitus doubted the rumour, when he only reports it | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | History.com (live) “he stated clearly that this was unconfirmed by eyewitness accounts”; Gainsford (live) “Nor does he ‘state clearly’ that it was unconfirmed.” - CONFIRMED | a song about Rome, when Tacitus says Troy; and an instrument in Suetonius, who gives him none | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | History.com (live) “sung about the destruction of Rome” vs 15.39 “Troianum excidium”; Phrase Finder (live) “The historian Suetonius records… he watched it from a tower while playing an instrument” vs Nero 38.2 “decantavit” (image) - OBSERVED | By this page’s reading, three of the five slips run in Nero’s favour | public/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/fire.json | runs: favour for eye, imm, raced; against for rome, instr; three of five - OBSERVED | Which way each debunked slip runs, for Nero or against him, is this page’s reading. | public/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/fire.json | the page names the direction as its own reading, in the slips paragraph and in The check - CONFIRMED | An earlier witness, in three editions | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n312_w1400.jpg | Pliny died in 79 (Cary p. 303 margin; the letter LXV), before Tacitus (Furneaux: 115 or 116), Suetonius (Rolfe: 120) and Dio (Cary: 200–222) - CONFIRMED | Furneaux’s commentary quotes it too | https://archive.org/download/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm/page/n517_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Furneaux p. 363: “Pliny also (N. H. 17. 1, 1, 5) speaks of ‘Neronis principis incendia quibus cremavit urbem’” - CONFIRMED | Bostock and Riley’s English of 1855 follows a text that has it | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=17:chapter=1 | live Perseus 0137 17.1: “they were in existence down to the period when the Emperor Nero set fire to the City, one hundred and eighty years after the time of Crassus” renders “quibus cremavit urbem, annis CLXXX postea” - OBSERVED | it shows what each one printed, read from the page images | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/sources/pliny-nh-17-5-three-editions.txt | METHOD line names the page images; all three read again here (Jan n101, Mayhoff n83, Rackham n15) and the transcriptions match - CONFIRMED | Gainsford reads Dio the other way: in his rendering Nero | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live: Gainsford renders Dio 62.18.1 “put on his gear for kithara performances” and writes “We have to substitute an ancient concert kithara for the modern violin”, against Barrett's “not, in fact, found in ancient sources” - CONFIRMED | Talbot, over the dying Salisbury | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1500/pg1500.txt | live pg1500.txt: the speech headed “TALBOT.” over Salisbury, “Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak!… Thou shalt not die whiles—” - CONFIRMED | At the theatre, not at the fire: Petronius has seen Nero | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Bullen p. 51, (Scene 3.): “Seneca. Petronius, you were at the Theater? Petron. Seneca, I was, and saw your Kingly Pupyll In Mynstrills habit stand before the Iudges” - CONFIRMED | the quarto has I’d | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Bullen p. 51, note 2: “4to. I'd.” - CONFIRMED | The same play, scene 4: the fire. | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n63_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Bullen p. 55: “To grace the funerall fires of ending Rome. [Exeunt. (Scene 4.) Soft Musique. Enter Nero above alone with a Timbrell. I, now my Troy lookes beautious in her flames” - OBSERVED | The line was not read here. | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/sources/grosart-1878-george-daniel-title-page.txt | METHOD line: “Volumes III-IV, which would hold the Trinarchodia text and the ‘fiddle’ line, were not found on archive.org… the line itself is NOT read here.” - CONFIRMED | Grosart’s edition of Daniel’s poems, printed in | https://archive.org/download/poemsgeorgedani01danigoog/page/n9_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; title page: “Printed for Private Circulation Only. 1878.” - CONFIRMED | Arguing that the House should not take up the state of Tangier | https://archive.org/download/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725/page/n99_w1200.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; p. [80]: “Silas Titus. Sir, I think that no body should move you to take the State of Tangier into your Consideration at this time, without an Apology… Let us secure the Ship, before we dispose of the Cabbins.” - CONFIRMED | the print spells him Silas | https://archive.org/download/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725/page/n99_w1200.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; p. [80] “Silas Titus.”; Barrett (live) “Silius Titus” - OBSERVED | The first wording read here that puts a fiddle in Nero’s hands while Rome burns is therefore the speech of 1680, as printed in 1725. | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/README.md | of the prints read here, the 1624 play has “a Fidler” at the theatre (p. 51) and “a Timbrell” at the fire (p. 55); Henry VI a lute; the 1725 print of the 1680 speech is the first with a fiddle and Rome on fire. Holds, as scoped to what was read - CONFIRMED | Gainsford, in 2017, said a speech of 1820 was what | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | live: “Dr Peter Crompton, campaigning for election in Liverpool in 1820… By the way, the sentiment is a lot older than 1820. It’s just that this appears to be the earliest occurrence of the exact phrasing”. "a speech" is a fair word for a campaign utterance reported in the Memoirs - CONFIRMED | Barrett, in 2021, quotes the preface of The Noble Cricketers of 1778 | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live note 28: “The Noble Cricketers: A Poetical and Familiar Epistle… (London, 1778), preface: ‘May it produce an amendment. That Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’” - CONFIRMED | Tréguer, in 2026, gives as the earliest allusive use he had found a near form, from The Public Advertiser of 15 March 1770 | https://wordhistories.net/2026/05/30/fiddle-while-rome-burns/ | live: “the earliest allusive use in a more generalised context that I have found dates back to 1770… as Nero fiddled whilst Rome was burning… The Public Advertiser (London, England) of Thursday 15 th March 1770” - CONFIRMED | The phrase, in its exact form or near it, keeps being found earlier | https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-fire-of-rome-nero-and-fiddle.html | Gainsford 2017: 1820 (exact); Barrett 2021: 1778 (exact); Tréguer 2026: 1770 (near). Each later find is earlier, read live - CONFIRMED | Barrett, who traced the English phrase in 2021 | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live landing page: title “FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS: THE AETIOLOGY OF A FAMILIAR ENGLISH EXPRESSION”, October 2021 - CONFIRMED | Barrett: the first English reference is in Cooper’s revision of Elyot’s Latin–English dictionary | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | live abstract: “the first English reference belongs to Cooper's 1548 revision of Elyot's Latin–English Dictionary , where Nero is said to play a harp during the conflagration” - CONFIRMED | and Seneca answers | https://archive.org/download/acollectionolde00bullgoog/page/n59_w1400.jpg | read by eye against the page image (cropped and zoomed here, 2026-11-02): matches letter for letter; Bullen p. 51: “Seneca. Nay, even end here, for I have heard enough; I have a Fidler heard him, let me not See him a Player” - CONFIRMED | Pliny mentions Nero’s fires in passing | https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC/page/n83_w1400.jpg | Mayhoff p. 66 and Jan p. 46 (images): the fires come up only as the end-date of Crassus's trees, “ad Neronis principis incendia” - CONFIRMED | Printed in A Collection of Debates in | https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-collection-of-debates-_england-and-wales-parli_1725 | IA metadata date 1725; Barrett n. 5 cites the same book “(London, 1725), 80” - CONFIRMED | History.com, History Staff, published 20 November 2012, last updated 28 May 2025 | https://www.history.com/articles/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live: “Published: November 20, 2012 Last Updated: May 28, 2025” - CONFIRMED | Live Science, Charles Q. Choi, 10 September 2022 | https://www.livescience.com/did-nero-fiddle-while-rome-burned | live: “By Charles Q. Choi Published 10 September 2022” - CONFIRMED | The Phrase Finder, Gary Martin, last updated 21 May 2026 | https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fiddling-while-rome-burns.html | live: “Last updated 21 May 2026 … Gary Martin” - OBSERVED | What was not read: George Daniel’s fiddle line (the volumes of Grosart’s edition that hold it were not found), Cooper’s 1548 dictionary entry, The Noble Cricketers and The Public Advertiser, the paywalled body of Barrett’s article, and Britannica’s page on the question, which refused the request. | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/sources/popular-accounts-2012-2026.txt | the kept copy records Britannica's HTTP 403 on 2026-11-01; the Grosart and Barrett limits are in their kept copies; the list matches what the page reports in others' words - OBSERVED | It needs only Node 18 or later. | verify-the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.mjs | header says Node 18+; imports only node: built-ins and uses global fetch; a scan for post-18 APIs (Object.groupBy, toSorted, Set methods, import.meta.dirname and the like) found none. Not run on Node 18 here (only Node 22 is installed) - OBSERVED | The Greek, the Rolfe Latin and English, the Cary English and the English prints were read from page images, because the scanned text is unreliable | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/sources/dio-62-16-18-cary-1925-greek-english.txt | METHOD lines in each kept copy; this pass read every one of those images and found the transcriptions exact - OBSERVED | Each was fetched on 2026-11-01. | research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/README.md | “Every source below was fetched on 2026-11-01.” Every URL entry in the source record has fetched 2026-11-01; some page images were re-read on 2026-11-02 by the fixer, of items first fetched on 11-01 - MINOR | The earliest says only that people said he sang about the fall of Troy | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus 15.39 (live) does report it as hearsay (“a rumour had gone forth everywhere… sang of the destruction of Troy”), but "says only" makes the list exhaustive and the same chapter also has what Nero did on his return: “he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude… the price of corn was reduced” - CONFIRMED | he was out of town when it started but came back while it still burned | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | live Perseus 15.39: “Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house”, and the fire then burned on (15.40) - CONFIRMED | None of them gives him a fiddle: English writers did that, much later. | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/article/fiddling-while-rome-burns-the-aetiology-of-a-familiar-english-expression/57F1F8CBDF4F2A8D9B3A271D1B9EB921 | no fiddle in Tacitus 15.38-44, Suetonius 38 or Dio 62.16-18 (read here); Barrett abstract (live): Cooper 1548 harp, George Daniel 1649 “the term ‘fiddle’”; Titus 1680 “his Fiddle” (image) - MINOR | relates note: “Two famous lines checked against the record: one pinned on a queen who never said it” | src/content/strata/let-them-eat-cake.md | the cake layer's own claims pass (assay/records/let-them-eat-cake.md, [X1: never-said]) keeps exactly this at MINOR: the sources show no evidence she said it, which "supports rejecting the attribution, but not categorical non-utterance". This note repeats the categorical form, and the house nearby block renders relates notes on the page - MINOR | History.com: “Though he immediately returned and began relief measures” graded DOES NOT MATCH, with only the Antium sentence beside it | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | "immediately returned" is the slip; "began relief measures" is in the same chapter of Tacitus: “However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures… the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck.” The page never says what Tacitus's “These acts” were, so the grade reads as if Tacitus denied the relief too - MINOR | Live Science: “Nero raced back to Rome.” graded DOES NOT MATCH (shipped fire.json verdict: “TACITUS SAYS THE OPPOSITE”) | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=39 | Tacitus gives when, not how fast: “did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house”. That sits ill with Live Science's framing (he learned of it at Antium and raced back), and the page may read it so, but it does not say the opposite of "raced"; neither the grade nor the fire.json verdict is labelled as the page's reading, as the direction of each slip is - MINOR | search readout: “in 0 of the 8 from the English plays and the 1680 speech” | public/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/engine.mjs | recreated: node --input-type=module (engine.searchReadout). The 8 are the ids matching /^(h6/ne/ti)-/: h6-lute, ne-mynstrill, ne-fidler, ne-id, ne-timbrel, ne-troy, ti-date, ti-fiddle. ne-id is Bullen's editorial note “4to. I'd.” and ti-date the Debates' date heading “The 17th of November, 1680.”, neither from a play or the speech; six are - MINOR | Dio’s Roman History, tr. E. Cary (both Sources entries; the pane label “Greek and English, Cary (Loeb)”) | https://archive.org/details/diosromanhistory08cassuoft | title pages of vol. I and vol. VIII (images n6): “WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY EARNEST CARY, PH.D. ON THE BASIS OF THE VERSION OF HERBERT BALDWIN FOSTER, PH.D.” The house rule attributes a translation to its translator; Cary is right but the title page names the translation's basis too - CONFIRMED | AD 1071 to 1078: Xiphilinus abridges Dio. … 1007 to 1014 years after the fire. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n25_w1400.jpg | Cary p. xxii (image) dates the reign of the emperor who asked for it: “at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071–78)”; the ladder item quotes that sentence, so the span is shown as Cary's. 1071-64 = 1007, 1078-64 = 1014 - OBSERVED | Tacitus: 4 stated as fact, 2 reported as rumour, 1 left open, 2 silent; 0 of the 3 details of the performance stated as fact. (and the Suetonius and Dio lines: 6 stated as fact, 3 silent; 3 of the 3) | recreated: counted by hand from the nine-row table on the page | Tacitus column O F R R S S F F F: F 4, R 2, O 1, S 2, performance (where, wore, sang) R S R = 0; Suetonius and Dio F S F F F S F F S: F 6, S 3, performance 3 of 3 - OBSERVED | Of these 7 sentences, 1 matches the ancient text, 1 gives one count of several, and 5 do not match it. | public/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/fire.json | grades: matches 1 (christ), partly 1 (six), not 5 (rome, eye, imm, raced, instr); engine.debunkReadout prints the same - CONFIRMED | section references: Nero 38.1, 38.2, 16.2; Dio 62.16.2, 62.17.1, 62.18.1, 62.18.2; Annals 15.38, 15.39, 15.40, 15.41, 15.44 | https://archive.org/download/suetonius01rolfgoog/page/n170_w1400.jpg | Rolfe's margin numbers (pp. 110, 154, 156) and Cary's (pp. 110, 114, 116) read on the images put each quoted Latin and Greek clause in the section the pane names; Tacitus by Perseus chapter - CONFIRMED | The nearest of the three to the fire calls the song a rumour. | https://archive.org/download/annalsoftacitus0001taci/page/n20_w1400.jpg | Furneaux: Annals completed “A.D. 115 or 116” (image); Rolfe “published in 120” (image); Cary “200–222” (image). Tacitus is nearest, and 15.39 has “pervaserat rumor” - CONFIRMED | Pliny readouts built by app.mjs: “Mayhoff leaves it out of the text and records it in the notes.” and “Rackham prints it in square brackets.” | https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_eP3zhUhrtIgC/page/n83_w1400.jpg | recreated: engine.editionReadout for each edition; Mayhoff p. 66 text without the clause, note “26 incendia D. incendia quibus cremauit urbem annis (clxxx add. v) postea ll. v.” (image); Rackham p. 4 “[quibus cremavit urbem annis postea]⁴”, “⁴ Secl. Detlefsen.” (image) - CONFIRMED | relates note: “this page follows one from a first-century rumour to the fiddle English writers gave it” | https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0077:book=15:chapter=39 | the fire and the rumour are of AD 64 (Cary margin, Dessau note 5); the fiddle is English (Barrett, Titus 1680) - CONFIRMED | Dates of writing are the editors’, as they give them: Furneaux’s from internal evidence, Rolfe’s plain year, Cary’s rough estimate. | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n14_w1400.jpg | Furneaux p. 5 “rests on internal evidence”; Rolfe p. xii “published in 120”; Cary p. xi “may be roughly estimated as the years 200–222” (all images) - CONFIRMED | plain: “Three Roman writers tell what Nero did while Rome burned.” | https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/diosromanhistory01cassuoft_djvu.txt | Tacitus and Suetonius are Roman; for Dio, Cary vol. I introduction (OCR): his father “was Cassius Apronianus, a Roman senator”, and Dio “became consul for the second time (consul ordinarius) with Alexander himself” in 229 ## Findings - [fixed] MED (the WRONG claim): The check said the whole-chapter tests find “no word of report, such as rumour or it is said, in Suetonius’s chapter 38 or in Dio’s 62.16-18 (Cary’s English, and the Greek read here), where Tacitus has rumor”. Re-read the page images https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n126_w1400.jpg (p. 117) and …/page/n125_w1400.jpg (p. 116) on 2026-11-02: 62.18.4 reads “And when Nero, by way of encouraging them, reported that these verses could not be found anywhere, they dropped them and proceeded to repeat another oracle, which they averred to be a genuine Sibylline prophecy”, and the Greek has “οὐδαμοῦ ταῦτα τὰ ἔπη εὑρέσθαι ἔλεγε”. The test had passed only because the kept text stopped at 62.18.2. The kept copy (research/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof/sources/dio-62-16-18-cary-1925-greek-english.txt) now holds pp. 116 and 117 whole, transcribed from those images, and its IA OCR excerpt now runs to the end of 62.18 (djvu.txt lines 6640-6676, compared byte for byte with the OCR re-fetched 2026-11-02), so the Antium, instrument and report tests all read the whole of 62.16-18. The sentence in The check now reads “no word of report, such as rumour or it is said, where Tacitus has rumor: none in Suetonius’s chapter 38, and none about the fire or the song in Dio’s 62.16-18 (Cary’s English, and the Greek read here), where the one word the test finds, reported in Cary’s English of 62.18.4, is Nero saying that an oracle’s verses could not be found”. The verifier now asserts that the kept text reaches the end of 62.18 (“free dole of grain”; “παρεσπάσατο”), that the English report test finds exactly one word in Dio, “reported”, after “countless persons perished” and in the sentence about the verses, and that the Greek has ἔλεγε there and no word of report; in a scratch copy, planting “it is said” in the account of the fire, or cutting the text before 62.18.5, turns it red. The record entry obs-no-report carries the new words and dio-reported cites p. 117. (“averred” is the people vouching for an oracle, not a word of report, and is not in the test’s list.) - [fixed] MINOR: The ladder labelled the second Medicean “Only source for Tacitus, Annals 11-16”. Re-read Furneaux vol. II pp. [2]-[4] on the page images …/page/n4_w1400.jpg, n5 and n6 (2026-11-02): “Many other manuscripts of this portion of the works of Tacitus exist, but none of them can claim any earlier date than the middle of the 15th century”; “An alternative theory, that these MSS. were not derived from the Medicean, but from some other old MS. coordinate with it and proceeding from the same archetypal MS., has been adopted by some editors, notably by Walther”; “Recent editors, however, have generally held that all the other MSS. are ultimately derived from the Medicean”. The label is now “Oldest copy of Tacitus, Annals 11-16” (p. 1 dates it to “the latter half of the eleventh century”, and p. [3] puts every other copy no earlier than the middle of the fifteenth), and the stop now quotes all three sentences: “Of the other copies: Many other manuscripts … 15th century. The theory that they come from another old manuscript has been adopted by some editors, notably by Walther. Furneaux goes on: Recent editors, however, have generally held …”. The passage is in the kept copy (furneaux-1896-1907-annals-dating-ms-notes.txt, a new section for pp. [2]-[4]), quotes.json (fu-ms-others, fu-ms-walther, fu-ms-derived) and the source record (medicean, medicean-walther); the verifier’s typed label, the readout at stop 6 and the declared reason for “Annals 11-16” follow. - [fixed] MINOR: The Sources line credited Church and Brodribb’s Perseus pages with “(CC BY-SA 3.0 US)”. Re-fetched all seven Perseus pages 1999.02.0078, chapters 38-44, on 2026-11-02: none carries a licence line (the one match for “license”, in ch. 43, is the translation’s own “which individual license had illegally appropriated”), and each ends “Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. reprinted 1942.” The Latin page (0077, ch. 39) and Bostock and Riley’s (0137, 17.1) do read “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License”. The entry now reads “Tacitus, Annals, tr. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, as encoded by the Perseus Digital Library; the translation is in the public domain.” The kept copy’s EDITION and BUILDER CHECK lines no longer claim the licence and record the re-check; the c-s-tac-eng record entry, the verifier’s typed citation and the README’s licence paragraph agree. - [fixed] MINOR: History.com’s “Though he immediately returned and began relief measures” stood beside the Antium sentence alone, and the plain said “The earliest says only that people said he sang about the fall of Troy”. Re-read 15.39 live (Perseus 0078, 2026-11-02): “However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude.” The note now adds that sentence in Latin and English after the Antium sentence: “The relief is in the same chapter: sed solacium populo … acciperent (However, to relieve the people, … the destitute multitude.) So the relief matches; the word immediately does not.” The grade stays does not match, because “immediately returned” is not in Tacitus, who has him come back “non ante … quam domui eius … ignis propinquaret”. The plain now reads “The earliest reports only as a rumour that he sang about the fall of Troy, and says he was out of town when it started but came back while it still burned.”, so “only” limits how the song is reported, not what Tacitus tells. New quotations tl-relief and te-relief (quotes.json, the record), record entries debunk-relief, debunk-relief-matches and plain-troy; fire.json’s verdict for this sentence, “TACITUS SAYS THE OPPOSITE”, is now “NOT UNTIL THE FIRE NEARED HIS HOUSE, IN TACITUS; THE RELIEF MATCHES”. The search’s count of ancient quotations became 56 (54 after fix round 3, below, which took Cary’s two editorial notes out of that set), and the verifier asserts it. - [fixed] MINOR: Live Science’s “Nero raced back to Rome.” was graded does not match with no word on what Tacitus says of speed, and fire.json called it “TACITUS SAYS THE OPPOSITE”. Re-read 15.39 live: “did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house” gives the time of the return, not its speed. The note now adds “Tacitus gives when he came back, not how fast: there is no haste in his words, only the time, as the fire approached his house.”; the fire.json verdict is now “TACITUS GIVES ONLY THE TIME, NO HASTE”; and the grades are named as the page’s reading among The check’s free choices: “The grade of each debunked sentence, and which way each slip runs, for Nero or against him, are this page’s reading.” The record (debunk-no-haste, debunk-runs-reading), the verifier’s header and a check for each sentence follow. - [fixed] MINOR: The relates note said the cake line was “pinned on a queen who never said it”. Re-read assay/records/let-them-eat-cake.md, [X1: never-said]: “This supports rejecting the attribution, but not categorical non-utterance.” The note now reads “one pinned on a queen with no evidence she ever said it” (src/content/strata/the-rumour-that-grew-a-roof.md). - [fixed] MINOR: The search readout counted 8 quotations “from the English plays and the 1680 speech”, two of which are not: re-read in quotes.json, ne-id is Bullen’s note “4to. I'd.” and ti-date the Debates’ date heading “The 17th of November, 1680.”. They are renamed bu-id and db-date (build-data.mjs, build-page.mjs, build-record.mjs), so the readout’s set is the six quotations from the plays and the speech. In Chromium, a click on fid now reads “in 2 of the 6 from the English plays and the 1680 speech (The Tragedy of Nero (1624) 3.3; Silas Titus, in A Collection of Debates (1725) p. [80])”. The verifier asserts 6, and that none of the six is Bullen’s or the Debates’ own words. - [fixed] MINOR: The Sources credited Cary alone (“Dio’s Roman History, tr. E. Cary”). Re-read the title pages of vol. I and vol. VIII (https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory01cassuoft/page/n6_w1400.jpg and https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n6_w1400.jpg, 2026-11-02): “WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY EARNEST CARY, PH.D. ON THE BASIS OF THE VERSION OF HERBERT BALDWIN FOSTER, PH.D.” Both entries now read “Dio’s Roman History, tr. E. Cary on the basis of the version of H. B. Foster, vol. …”; the verifier’s typed citations and the c-s-cary8 and c-s-cary1 record entries agree. The pane label stays “Greek and English, Cary (Loeb)”, as the finding allowed. - [fixed] MINOR: (fix-check after round 2) The search readout counted 56 quotations “from the three ancient accounts”, two of which are Cary’s apparatus, not the accounts. Re-read on the page images https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n124_w1400.jpg (foot of p. 115) and https://archive.org/download/diosromanhistory08cassuoft/page/n125_w1400.jpg (p. 116), 2026-11-02: note 4 reads “τοῦ παλατίου R. Steph., τὰ παλάτια VC.”, and the Greek of 62.18 ends “—Xiph. 166, 17–169, 10 R. St.”, Cary’s reference to the epitome in Robert Stephanus’s edition. They were dg-note and dg-xiph, so the engine’s prefix /^(tl|te|sl|se|dg|de)-/ counted them; they are now cn-note and cn-xiph (build-data.mjs, page.template.html, build-record.mjs, and so quotes.json, the Stephanus stop in fire.json, the data-q attributes in index.html and the record entries q-cn-note and q-cn-xiph). The set is now the 54 quotations from Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio and their translators (13 Tacitus, 13 Church and Brodribb, 8 Suetonius, 8 Rolfe, 6 Dio, 6 Cary). Recreated in Node (engine.searchReadout): ““steph”: in 0 of the 54 quotations from the three ancient accounts; in 0 of the 6 from the English plays and the 1680 speech.”, and “fid” reads “in 0 of the 54 quotations from the three ancient accounts; in 2 of the 6 from the English plays and the 1680 speech”. The verifier asserts 54, and that every one of them, and every quotation from those six sources, has its source among Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio and their translators, none “Cary, note” or “Cary, end”; with dg-note put back in a scratch copy it fails (2 failed). - [fixed] MINOR: (fix-check after round 2) The Sources entry for Furneaux vol. II read “pp. 1-2, 363 and 366”, but since round 2 the page quotes pp. [2]-[4] (fu-ms-others pp. 2-3, fu-ms-walther pp. 3-4, fu-ms-derived p. 4). Re-read the page images n4, n5 and n6 of https://archive.org/details/furneaux-annals.-bk.-11-16-2nd-ed.-1907-lat-en-comm on 2026-11-02: n4 is headed [2] and its last line begins “Many other manuscripts”; n5 is headed [3] and begins “but none of them can claim any earlier date than the middle of the 15th century”; n6 is headed [4] and has “Recent editors, however, have generally held that all the other MSS. are ultimately derived from the Medicean”. The entry now reads “H. Furneaux, The Annals of Tacitus, vol. II, second edition revised by H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher (Oxford, 1907), pp. 1-4, 363 and 366. Public domain.” (build-page.mjs and index.html, the verifier’s typed citation, the record entry c-s-furn2). With it, the provenance the fix-checker noted: the kept copy’s header had listed n5 and n6 under “fetched 2026-11-01”, but they were first opened on 2026-11-02 (and n2, the preface, in round 1). The header now says so, and the record entries that rest on those images (q-fu-ms-others, q-fu-ms-walther, q-fu-ms-derived, medicean, medicean-walther, furneaux-1907) carry fetched 2026-11-02.