This diversion, however, was of no use.  The conflagration definitely ruined Nero.  With the conflagration begins the third period of his life, which lasts four years.  It is characterised by absurd exaggerations of all kinds, which hastened the inevitable catastrophe.  One grandiose idea dominates it:  the idea of building on the ruins a new Rome, immense and magnificent, a true metropolis for the Empire.  In order to carry out this plan, Nero did not economise; he began to spend in it the moneys laid aside to pay the legions.  The people of Italy, however, and even of Rome, which grew rich on these public expenditures, did not show themselves thankful for this immense architectural effort.  Every one was sure that the new city would be worse than the old one!

Nero himself, exasperated by this invincible hate, exhausted by his own excesses, lost what reason he had still left, and his government degenerated into a complete tyranny, suspicious, violent, and cruel.

Piso’s conspiracy caused him to order a massacre of patricians, which left terrible rancour in its wake; in an access of fury, he killed Poppaea; he began to imagine accusations against the richest men of the Empire, in order to confiscate their estates.  His prodigality and the general carelessness had completely disorganised the finances of the Empire; he had to recur to all kinds of expedients to find money.  Finally he undertook a great artistic tour in Greece—­that province which had been the mother of arts—­to play in its most celebrated theatres.  This time indignation burst all bounds.  The armies of Gaul and Spain, for a long time irregularly paid, led by their officers, revolted.  This act of energy sufficed.  On the 9th of June, 68 A.D., abandoned by all the world, Nero was compelled to commit suicide.

So the family of Julius Caesar disappears from history.  After so much greatness, genius, and wisdom, the fall may seem petty and almost laughable.  It is absurd to lose the Empire for the pleasure of singing in a theatre.  And yet, bizarre as the end may seem, it was not the result of the vices, the follies, and the crimes of Nero alone.  In his way, Nero himself was, like all members of his family, the victim of the contradictory situation of his times.

It has been repeated for centuries, that the foundation of monarchy was the great mission of Caesar’s family.  I believe this to be a great mistake.  The lot of the family would have been simple and easy, if it had been able to found a monarchy.  The family of Caesar had to solve another problem, much more difficult,—­in fact insoluble; a problem that may be compared, from a certain point of view, to that which confronted the Bonapartes in the nineteenth century.  The Bonapartes found old monarchical, legitimistic, theocratic Europe agitated by forces which, although making it impossible for the ancient regime to continue, were not yet able to establish a new society, entirely democratic, republican, and