I was having a discussion on reddit about the two secular sources of Jesus (not a theological one) and mentioned Tacitus, which ethnographers seemed to believe is genuine.
Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices,27 whom the crowd styled Christians.28 Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus,
It was proffered that there was some modifications (Richard Carrier, PhD proponent of Christ Myth theory) on Tacitus, when indeed the Chrestians were followers of Claudius:
Like Benario, Van Voorst mentions (most relevantly) C. Saumagne, “Tacite et saint Paul,” Revue Historique 232 (1964), pp. 67-110, and Jean Rougé, “L’incendie de Rome en 64 et l’incendie de Nicomédia en 303,” Mélanges d’histoire ancienne offerts à William Seston (1974), pp. 433-41. Van Voorst also argues (as have several other scholars, only some of whom he cites: pp. 43-44; Benario names others) that Tacitus originally wrote “Chrestians” and not “Christians,” which was corrected by medieval Christian scribes back to Christians (there is indeed some evidence of this).
I am increasingly convinced that Van Voorst (and his backers) might be right about that. Which creates a problem they overlook. If Tacitus originally wrote “Chrestians,” then it becomes possible he was originally writing about rioters who were following the Chrestus who had ginned up riots under Claudius (Nero’s predecessor) as reported by Suetonius (Claudius 25.4), and that later Christian scribes inserted only the line about Christ (that he was killed under Tiberius by Pilate), thus coopting a passage about a completely different group, turning it into a passage about Christians. So when Tacitus says the people punished for the fire are the ones “the public calls Chrestians,” he may have been referring to his treatment of the Chrestian riots under Claudius (which must have been covered in the lost books of Tacitus that covered Claudius’ reign from 41 to 47 A.D., as the date of the Chrestian riot could have fallen in that period, and it is indeed odd that Tacitus does not otherwise mention it: Van Voorst, pp. 31-32).
This makes the possibility of interpolation substantially more credible. This would also explain why no one else mentions this event (for centuries), and no other historians of Nero’s reign (like Pliny the Elder) were ever quoted or had their histories preserved (as we would normally expect if they had mentioned Christ or Christians–which fact supports the conclusion that they didn’t, which then entails Tacitus didn’t, unless he was repeating what was by then a Christian legend about the fire at Rome, about a persecution that never actually happened, and not anything actually recorded by historians contemporary with the fire).
Is this even slightly accepted within the historical community? That the riots and subsequent fire were from Claudius reign vs supposed Christians (followers of a religious movement)?
It’s a notorious problem of interpretation complicated by a number of factors. The two authors we are dealing with are Tacitus, who has a brief reference to the fire being blamed on “Chrestians” whose name derives from “Christus”. Tacitus: Yes, if you have a look at manuscript copies of Tacitus, it almost certainly reads Chrestians. And has been corrected from e to i. However, the manuscript is 11th century, so it is not conclusive about the correction itself. The most likely explanation is, in my view, that the reading ‘Chrestians’ is traceable back to Tacitus, and has been preserved faithfully, but changed in the manuscript text (the second Medicean manuscript) we have. There is then the question of whether the explanatory sentence is an interpolation at all but there is simply no reasonable evidence to support an interpolation.
Suetonius: The text of Suetonius has Chresto in Claudius 25, but christiani in Nero 16. Some of the issues are these:
chrestus is a relatively common Greek word meaning ‘useful’, it was also fairly typical for a slave’s name. It would be familiar to Tacitus and Suetonius.
Christos is relatively uncommon, and its usage in Jewish and especially Christian circles was distinctive. Tacitus and Suetonius may or may not be familiar with it, though it is pretty reasonable to think that they are aware of Christians in general.
Greek did undergo a process of vowel shifts, so it is not impossible that η was heard as, or even pronounced as ι at this period, though it would be relatively early for eta to shift to iota.
Even without vowel shifts, mishearing and/or misunderstanding is a possible explanation.
We do have considerable evidence for Christians in the 1st century, and a disturbance in the Jewish community caused by the preaching of the Christian message is plausible and coherent.
We have no other evidence for a group called ‘Chrestians’ or for a figure called ‘Chrestus’ who caused a disturbance. Any such explanation is speculative (i.e. it could be right, but it is not based on any further evidence).
In response to your direct question, “that the riots and subsequent fire were from Claudius’ reign”, I think on the whole it is unlikely. For two primary reasons:
Firstly, Tacitus would have been alive, though young, at the time of Nero’s fire. He is well-educated, moves in Roman political circles, and would be unlikely to move a fire and disturbance from Nero’s reign to Claudius’. That is simply a historical error that Tacitus would not make. If he had been another 50-100 years later, perhaps, but given his dating it is fairly unlikely. Secondly, redating the fire to Claudius’ reign on the basis of a riot by Chrestians lead by Chrestus presupposes the solution of the question of ‘chrestus’ in the manuscripts. There is no other mention of a riot instigated by Chrestus. Suetonius certainly knows about Christians and writes about the in connection with Nero, and there’s little reason to think he is confused about Nero and Claudius’ reigns either.