Kiwi Kawaii uses a time machine and travels back in time to witness the great fire of Rome. Returning to present day, she finds it too sad to describe the horror the way it happened, and so the choice to 'kawaii' the event is done. 'Burning Rome' is a cute depiction of a tragic event. We can notice that Nero is nowhere to be seen, which means that rumours are exactly just that.

During the night of July 18, 64 AD, fire broke out in the merchant area of the city of Rome. Fanned by summer winds, the flames quickly spread through the dry, wooden structures of the Imperial City. Soon the fire took on a life of its own consuming all in its path for six days and seven nights. When the conflagration finally ran its course it left seventy percent of the city in smoldering ruins.

Rumors soon arose accusing the Emperor Nero of ordering the torching of the city and standing on the summit of the Palatine playing his lyre as flames devoured the world around him. These rumors have never been confirmed. In fact, Nero rushed to Rome from his palace in Antium (Anzio) and ran about the city all that first night without his guards directing efforts to quell the blaze. But the rumors persisted and the Emperor looked for a scapegoat. He found it in the Christians, at that time a rather obscure religious sect with a small following in the city. To appease the masses, Nero literally had his victims fed to the lions during giant spectacles held in the city's remaining amphitheater.

Having lost their estates, the resentful Roman nobility, many of whom already detested Nero, would have understandably been motivated to circulate the rumor that he had set the fire to acquire more land for his new palatial ambitions.

From the ashes of the fire rose a more spectacular Rome. A city made of marble and stone with wide streets, pedestrian arcades and ample supplies of water to quell any future blaze. The debris from the fire was used to fill the malaria-ridden marshes that had plagued the city for generations.

Thank you for reading!