Open Question
Tacitus, writing roughly fifty years after the event and the near-sole near-contemporary source, describes an "immense multitude" convicted without giving any number, and no other source from within a century of the fire supplies one; the 979 figure sometimes quoted traces to Jerome's chronicle of the 390s CE, over three centuries later.
What would resolve this No further ancient source is likely to surface at this distance; a systematic review of the archaeological and epigraphic record for first century Roman burial or execution sites tied to this specific episode could at best establish a documented floor rather than a true total.
OpenRoman imperial history; early Christian source criticismPublius Cornelius Tacitus, Tacitus, Annals, Book XV
Cross-Tradition Connections
Question On
Tacitus gives no number for the persecution, only a rhetorical description of scale, and no near-contemporary source supplies one.
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