Well attestedNamed from the place
fiddle while Rome burns
verb · first attested 19th century
The fiddle would not be invented for another fourteen centuries.
To busy oneself with trifles while a disaster runs its course.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 19th century
- Part of speech
- verb
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Rome
- In English
fiddle while Rome burns
Roman writers reported that Nero sang about the fall of Troy during the fire of AD 64, and later retellings handed him a fiddle instead; bowed instruments reached Europe much later, and the violin is a 16th-century creation. Tacitus also places Nero outside the city when the fire started, which spoils the picture further.
Also pinned to Rome
5 more from the same place
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Italy
All 63 entries 57 more words from Italy
jeansThe trousers point to Genoa, not to the American West.GenoaparmesanThe grater cheese is an English take on Parma.ParmasybariteThe pleasure-seeker is named for a vanished Greek city in Italy.SybarismagentaThe color is named for a battle in Lombardy.MagentacantaloupeThe melon is named for a papal estate in the Sabine hills.Cantalupo in SabinatarantulaThe spider is named for Taranto.TarantoitalicSlanted type is named for Italy, and more tightly for Venice.VenicesardineThe fish may be named for Sardinia. It also may not.Sardinia