No doubt the imperial State created by the Julii and the Claudii was an admirable machine, incomparably superior as a mere structure to the old republican State of the patrician families. But, by a curious coincidence, hardly had it reached full development when the social body began to decay. Society begins to be enslaved, to be unable to live except in the service of the State. The whole of life is bureaucratised. The bureaucratisation of life brings about its absolute decay in all orders.
Wealth diminishes, births are few.
Then the State, in order to attend to its own needs, forces on still more the bureaucratisation of human existence. This bureaucratisation to the second power is the militarisation of society. The State's most urgent need is its apparatus of war, its army. Hence, above all, an army. The Severi, of African origin, militarise the world.