As the corpse is placed in a casket or container (preferably prepared from a combustible material), the container burns down. Next, the heat dries the body, burns the skin and hair, contracts and chars the muscles, vaporizes the soft tissues, and calcifies the bones so that they eventually crumble.
One such story is that of Nero merrily playing the fiddle while Rome burned in the Great Fire of the first century. It was during the night of the 18 th July 64 AD, when a fire broke out in the merchant area of the city.
Nero himself blamed the Christians (then an obscure religious sect) for the fire, and had many arrested and executed. But while Nero may have been guilty of many things, the story of him fiddling while Rome burned belongs firmly in the category of popular legend rather than established truth. 1  Tags. 2  Ancient Rome. 3  Nero.