Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"During ta hot July night in the year 64, rickety shops near the Circus Maximus in Rome caught fire. . . . Ten of Rome's districts were ruined, and much of the population of two million was made homeless. . . . Tacitus suggested that, faced with such accusations, the unpopular emperor blamed the Christian sect (which expected the imminent end of the world and saw the materialist Roman Empire as the creation of the devil). As a reprisal, Nero launched a wave of persecution that sent Christians to the lions for the first time." [1001 Days]