Draft:Fire of Rome (192)

In 192 AD, a fire destroyed a large portion of central Rome, including numerous warehouses and at least three libraries on the Palatine Hill and Trajan's Forum. Libraries destroyed included the Palatine library, the Domus Tiberiana library, and the Templum Pacis library. The fire burned for days and spread throughout many sections of the city until it was extinguished by rain. The fire was memorialized by the Roman historian Dio Cassius and by Galen in his text Peri Alupias, which was lost and then rediscovered in 2005 in a monastery in Thessaloniki; Galen's text illuminated the full intellectual loss and destruction due to the fire. Other authors and contemporaries of Galen recorded immense losses from the fire, such as the grammarian Philides who lost so many books and manuscripts in the fire that he wasted away from grief and died.

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Dio Cassius' account of the fire describes it as a portent that started before the death of Commodus, as does Herodian, who put a greater emphasis on the associated omens and considered the fire to the be the "worst portent of all", given the total destruction of the Templum Pacis, the "largest and most beautiful building in the city", and the entire sacred precinct. The fire began at night in a dwelling and spread to the Templum Pacis and then spread to storehouses that contained Egyptian and Arabian wares and objects. The temple of Vesta was also destroyed, which exposed the statue of Pallas Athena until the Vestal Virgins seized it, carried it down the Via Sacra, and relocated it to the imperial palace.