vagant caprices, who spent so much money to divert himself,
shocked the last republican susceptibilities of Italy. The wise felt
alarmed: with such expenses, would it not all end in bankruptcy?
For all these causes, they soon began to reproach Nero for his
prodigality, although the people enjoyed it, just as they had been
malcontent with Tiberius for his parsimony. His caprices, ever
stranger, little by little roused even that part of the public which
was not fanatically attached to tradition. At that time Nero developed
his foolish vanity of actor, his caprice for the theatre, which soon
was to become an all-absorbing mania. The chief of the Empire, the
heir of Julius Caesar, dreamed of nothing else than descending from
the height of human grandeur to the scene of a theatre, to experience
before the public the sensations of those players whom the Roman
nobility had always regarded as instruments of infamous pleasure!

Disgusted with Nero's mismanagement and follies, Seneca took the death
of Burrhus as an opportunity to retire. Then Nero, freed from the
last person who still retained any influence over him, gave himself
up entirely to the insane swirl of his caprices. He ended one day by
presenting himself in the theatre of Naples. Naples was yet then a
Greek city. Nero had chosen it for this reason; he was applauded with
frenzy. But the Italians of the other cities protested: the chief of
the Empire appearing in a theatre, his hand on the zither and not
on the sword! Imagine what would be the impression if some day a
sovereign went on the stage of the _folies Bergeres_ as a "number" for
a sleight-of-hand performance!

Public attention, however, was turned from this immense scandal by a
frightful calamity--the famous conflagration of Rome, which began the
nineteenth of July of the year 64 and devastated almost all quarters
of the city for ten days. What was the cause of the great disaster?
This very obscure point has much interested historians, who have tried
in vain to throw light on the subject. As far as I am concerned, I
by no means exclude the hypothesis that the fire might have been
accidental. But when they are crushed under the weight of a great
misfortune, men always feel sure that they are the victims of human
wickedness: a sad proof of their distrust in their fellow men. The
plebs, reduced to utter misery by the disaster, began to murmur
that mysterious people had been seen hurrying through the different
qu