Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned — the fiddle wouldn't exist for another 1,500 years

The violin wasn't invented until the 16th century, so the story is anachronistic on its face. Tacitus, the historian closest in time to the fire of 64 AD, records that Nero was away at Antium when it started and returned to organise relief efforts. Later writers claimed he sang while it burned — but on a lyre-like cithara, not a fiddle.

— Tacitus, Annals (contemporary source); Suetonius and Cassius Dio (later accounts), Great Fire of Rome — c. 116 AD