appear on the stage, and Roman knights to combat in the arena as gladiators. He then instituted a society of Augustani, or Emperor's friends, whose sole business was to receive him with the most vehement applauses as soon as he should appear. At length, surrounded by courtiers and guards, he ventured to make his entrance, tuning his instrument, and accompanied by Burrhus, as Tacitus says,

mærens

& laudans," grieving and applauding. A taste for poetry might be reckoned among his more respectable inclinations; but in him it turned to the idle vanity of gaining venal plaudits for pieces composed without genius or application. He also paid some attention to the systems of philosophers, and he occasionally as sembled the leaders of the different sects to dispute before him for his diversion. In the sixth year of his reign, he instituted games in imitation of those of Greece, which were at the same time gymnical, musical, and equestrian. He gave them the name of Neronian, and in person disputed the prizes of eloquence and poetry, in which he obtained an easy victory. The pantomimic art, of which he was. particularly fond, at this time reached a perfection it had never before attained.

Public affairs were still conducted with wisdom; and though the rigour of the laws of lese-majesty had been revived, their execution was still moderated, when the death of Burrhus, and the declining influence of Seneca, prepared the way for the tyranny and cruelty which has characterised the reign of Nero. Seneca retired from court, and nothing virtuous or dignified remained in it. Sacrifices of distinguished persons were soon made to the jealous fears of the emperor; and the long meditated step of repudiating Octavia, in order to make room upon the throne for Poppæa, took place in 62. The hatred of Nero against this virtuous spouse was not satiated with her dismission. At the instigation of Poppæa an infamous accusation of adultery was brought against her, and she was relegated into Campania. The lively interest taken in her fate by the Roman people caused her to be further banished to the isle of Pandataria, where she was soon after put to death. Pallas, the all-powerful freedman of Claudius, died about the same time, poisoned, as was supposed, by the emperor's orders, for the sake of his immense wealth. Acts of cruelty and rapacity alone varied the scenes of indecent folly and abandoned debauchery which constituted the habitual life of Nero.

The terrible conflagration of Rome in the

year 64 is by Suetonius and Dio positively charged upon the emperor. Tacitus, however, expresses a doubt concerning its origin, and indeed the probability seems to be that it was accidental. Nero was at Antium when it happened, and only returned to see his own palace destroyed by the flames. He opened his gardens and caused sheds to be erected for the multitude who were deprived of a home, and took proper measures to prevent a scarcity and supply the most pressing wants of the people. Yet it is not improbable that his unfeeling levity might have rendered him a curious spectator of the devastation, and suggested to him the burning of Troy as a happy subject to sing to his lyre during the ravages of the flames. This fire, which was not extinguished till the sixth day, laid the greater part of the city in ashes. Its re-edification was conducted with due attention, as well to the rights of individuals as to the public advantage; and the new city was much improved in the breadth and direction of its streets, and its conveniences of every kind. The emperor might have gained credit, upon the whole, by this disaster, had not the suspicion of his being its author still maintained its ground in the minds of the people. One method which he took to divert it has perhaps excited greater detestation of his memory than all his other enormities. He caused the Christians, who at that time began to be known as a new religious sect in Rome, to be accused as the incendiaries; and taking their guilt for granted, he apprehended all of them whom he could discover in the city, and put them to death in the most horrible torments. Some were clad in the skins of wild beasts and baited by dogs, others were enveloped in combustibles, and set on fire to serve as torches in Nero's gardens, whilst he entertained the populace with a horse-race. This cruelty and injustice has branded him with the title of the first persecutor of the christian church; the persecution, however, appears to have been only local and temporary. Of the new edifices in Rome, none could bear comparison with that which Nero constructed for his own residence, and called the Golden Palace. This building was not more remarkable for the immense quantity of gold and other precious materials employed in its decoration, than for its enormous magnitude, and the vast compass of its grounds and appendages for use and ornament. An epigram upon it is preserved by Suetonius, the sense of which is, "Rome is becoming a single house; remove, ye Romans to Veii, unless Veii, too should be swallowe

up in its extent." Nero, whose taste was entirely turned to the gigantic, and who could enjoy nothing but in proportion to its cost, observed when it was finished, "that he now began to be lodged like a man." His mad profusions of every kind rendered him always needy, and consequently rapacious; and there was no mode of raising money by exactions and pillage which he did not practise to replenish his exhausted treasury. When he gave a lucrative employment, he was used to "You know what I want-let it be our business to leave nobody any thing." Though much inclined to superstition, he made no scruple of plundering the most sacred temples in the empire, for which he atoned by paying extraordinary honours to some favourite deity.

say,

The disgrace and personal danger attending subjection to such a monster of a prince, produced, in the year 65, a conspiracy against the life of Nero, which embraced many of the noblest persons in Rome. The plan was to kill the tyrant by surprize in the circus, and to elevate to the throne C. Piso, a man of illustrious descent. Senators, knights, and even officers of the pretorian guard, and one of the prefects, were concerned in the plot, and several females were made privy to it. The secret was kept with great fidelity, and it was only by accident that it was discovered the day before the intended execution. Several persons were immediately apprehended, whose confessions augmented the number of culprits; for very few of the conspirators possessed the firmness of Epicharis, a woman of loose character, who had been entrusted with the secret, and who resisted the utmost force of torture, and finally contrived to escape further question by strangling herself. The poet Lucan's want of constancy has been mentioned in his life, but he atoned for it by a heroic death. Another distinguished victim was Seneca, though his knowledge of the conspiracy was very doubtful. Much of the best blood in Rome was shed on this occasion, yet some examples of clemency appeared. Largesses bestowed by the emperor on the soldiery, and congratulations of the senate, conceived in the basest spirit of adulation, terminated this affair.

Tyranny is always exasperated by a detected conspiracy. Nero from this period, become suspicious of every man of rank and character, set no bounds to his cruelty; whilst the innate levity of his propensities displayed itself with more extravagance than before. He mounted the public theatre at Rome, and disputed for

the prizes of musician and actor with all the ardour and affected humility that could be felt by a professional man, professional man, at the same time making the spectators feel his tyranny by the punishments inflicted on those who were reported by his spies to have been careless or tardy in their applauses. These games were followed by the death of Poppea in consequence of a kick received in a state of pregnancy, from her brutal husband in a fit of passion. He is thought to have loved her to the last, as well as he was capable of loving any thing. He caused her body to be embalmed in the eastern manner, pronounced her funeral oration in person, and burnt more perfumes at her obsequies than the annual produce of Arabia. A bloody list of executions, in which the victims were the best and greatest men of Rome, distinguishes the annals of the subsequent years. The accusation and death of Thrasea Pætus, a Roman of the true republican stamp, whose free sentiments had long rendered him obnoxious, is particularly described by the philosophic pen of Tacitus. These sanguinary scenes were contrasted by the splendid ceremonial of Nero's conferring the crown of Armenia on Tiridates in presence of the Roman people, in which the oriental servility and the Roman pride were equally conspicious.

The Greeks, who were now not less distinguished for refined flattery than they had formerly been for genuis, sent deputies to compliment Nero on his musical attainments, who gave him so favourable an idea of their countrymen, that he resolved to make the tour of Greece. Carrying with him a prodigious train of persons attached to his theatrical establishment, he embarked for that country in 67, and successively exhibited himself in all the celebrated games of Greece, contending for the different prizes, and obtaining every where easy victories over his complaisant rivals. It is said that the crowns awarded to him amounted to eighteen hundred; and he was so well satisfied with the honours paid him, that he solemnly proclaimed Greece free, as Q. Flaminius had done before. But this shadowy favour was counterbalanced by the pillages, confiscations, and murders of which his visit was productive. In order to perpetuate his name, he undertook a project often before conceived, but deserted through superstitious motives, that of cutting across the isthmus which joins Peloponnesus to the rest of Greece. The work had proceeded some length when Nero was hastily recalled.

to Rome by the fear of new conspiracies. He had left in the capital as his deputy his freedman Helius, armed with full powers, which he employed with as much rigour as his master had done, and probably by directions from him. Many were the victims who had fallen in this interval; and that hatred to the senate, which the tyrant did not attempt to disguise, the prospect of many more. On his regave turn to Italy he made triumphal entries into several of the towns, and especially into Rome, in which he displayed the most absurd and childish vanity.

Whilst he continued plunged in infamous. pleasures and trifling amusements, he was roused by two pieces of intelligence which might convince him that the time was come in which his detestable tyranny could no longer be endured; these were the revolt of Vindex in Gaul, and of Galba in Spain. The latter particularly alarmed him; and although he made some preparations for resistance, yet despair seems from the first to have taken possession of his mind. Under its influence he formed various bloody and horrible projects, while at the same time his habitual levity displayed itself in ridiculous puerilities. Of all the reproaches with which index loaded him, none affected him so much as the title of a paltry musician; and he appealed to all around him if they knew a more skilful performer. The revolt of Vindex was quelled by Virginius Rufus, with the death of that chief; but Galba openly declared his purpose of freeing the Roman empire from a tyrant, and was joined by many of the commanders of provinces. Virginius, who refused the purple when offered him by his soldiers. remained at the head of a neutral army, neither supporting Galba nor opposing him. At length even the pretorian cohorts were detached from their allegiance by the persuasions of their prefect, and proclaimed Galba emperor. Nero, who from the first had shewn the most cowardiy irresolution, now fled from Rome, and took refuge in the country-house of one of his freedmen. After his flight was known, he was declared a public enemy by the senate, and condemned to an ignomous death. He was exhorted by the few friends who remained with him to prevent this catastrophe by a voluntary death, but he wasted the time in frivolous preparations and unmanly complaints, still in vain attempting to work himself into a resolution for the deed. At length the sound of the horsemen sent to apprehend him

put an end to his hesitation; and repeating a line of Homer suggested by the circumstance, he pierced his throat with a poniard. While his hand was tremblingly performing its office, it was aided by his secretary; and soon after the entry of the centurion, he expired. His remains were allowed a plain but decent funeral, accompanied by his two nurses, and Acte his first concubine. Nero died A. D. 68, in the thirty-first year of his age, and fourteenth of his reign; and in him terminated the line of Augustus. Detested as his memory has generally been in all ages, there were not wanting many in Rome among the people and soldiery who for several years crowned his tomb with flowers, and cherished his name with fond regret. But such an attachment will not entitle him to credit for a single virtue; since it was the offspring of that lavish profusion which is always a vice in princes, and is frequently the parent of every other vice Taciti Annal Suetonius. Crevier.-A.

NERVA, COCCEIUS, Roman emperor, was descended from a Cretan family, which had become Roman at least in the time of Augustus, who admitted a progenitor of the emperor's to his friendship Nerva was born A. D. 26, at Narni in Umbria; and being the son, grandson, and great-grand-on of consuls, entered with success the career of civil dignities. He was designated prætor when Nero, on what account does not appear, conferred upon him triumphal honours A's, from the testimony of Martial, he was distinguished for poetical talents, that circumstance might have procured him the favour of a prince who affected the patronage of polite literature. He was consul for the first time in the year 71 with the emperor Vespasian, and afterwards in 90 with Domitian. The latter, however, is said by Philostratus to have relegated Nerva to Tarentum, on account of a suspicious correspondence which he held with the famous philosopher Apollonius Tyaneus. The conspirators who had formed the resolution of freeing the empire from the tyranny of Domitian, applied to Nerva, who seems then to have been at Rome, to know if he would accept of the succession, and he gave them a favourable answer. As soon, therefore, as the tyrant was killed, which was in September 96, Nerva was immediately proclaimed emperor. pretorian cohorts had been secured in his interest by their prefect, and the senate was happy to confirm the elevation of one of their own body, whom they highly respected. His

NESTOR, a distinguished Grecian chief at the time of the Trojan war, was king of Pylos in Peloponnesus. His father Neleus had twelve sons, of whom all but Nestor perished in an invasion of the country by Hercules. Nestor was preserved from this slaughter by being educated among the Gerenians. He fought when a youth with success against the Eleans or Epeans, a neighbouring people. He is also said to have been at the marriage of Piritheus, and to have been one of those who repelled the Centaurs (probably a body of horsemen) in their attempt to carry off Hippodamia. He is represented by Homer as being of a great age at the siege of Troy, and even as having lived three ages, which, if interpreted generations, may be stated at ninety years. His wisdom, the product of experience, is displayed on several occasions in the councils of the Greeks; and his honey-like eloquence is employed in conciliating the dissensions between the leaders. The garrulity of old age, joined to the qualities of a veteran statesman and warrior, renders him a very natural and interesting personage in the Iliad, and there can be little doubt that his character was transmitted in real tradition. His son Antilochus, a brave warrior, perished before the walls of Troy. Homer's Iliad. Ovidii Metam.-A.

NESTOR, or LETOPIS NESTOROVA, a Russian historian, was born in 1056 at Bielzier. In his twenty-ninth year he assumed the monastic habit, and took the name by which he is known. He entered the monastery of Petchersti at Kiof, and there applied closely to the Greek language, though he seems rather to have studied it in the Byzantine historians than in the older classics. He is supposed to have died about 1115. The work by which he is known is a Chronicle, containing, after a short introductory account of the early state of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, a geographical description of Russia and the adjoining countries; an account of the Sclavonian nations, their emigrations, dispersion, and final settlement; and lastly, a chronological series of the Russian annals from 858 to about 1113. He writes in a simple style, and his narrative is dry and tedious; but its minuteness and chronological exactness give it the air of veracity, and it is said by a competent judge to be much superior in authenticity to any other chronicle among the people of Sclavonian origin. Although this author's name occurs in the early Russian books, his work lay in obscurity, till Peter the Great ordered a transcript to be made of a copy of it found in the

library of Konigsburgh, where it had been placed in 1668 by prince Radzivil. Professor Muller in 1732 published a German translation of the first part, but erroneously ascribed it to one Theodosius. It has since been published at Petersburgh in 1767, quarto, and is valued as the earliest monument of Russian history. It has been brought down by two continuators to 1203. Coxe's Trav. into Russia. Nouv. Dict. Ilist.-A.

NESTORIUS, a celebrated bishop of Constantinople in the fifth century, after whom his followers were called Nestorians, was a Syrian by nation, and born at Germanicia, towards the close of the preceding century. He was educated in the monastery of St. Euprepius, in the suburbs of his native city, and became a disciple of the famous Theodore of Mopsuestia. Afterwards he was ordained presbyter of the church of Antioch, and acquired a high character for learning, eloquence, and piety. With these qualities was connected an abundant portion of zeal and intolerance against all oppugners of the catholic doctrine of the trinity. In the year 428, on the recommendation of the emperor Theodosius, he was chosen to fill the vacant see of Constantinople. On the day of his ordination, when he delivered his first sermon before the emperor and the people of his diocese, he declared his resolution vigorously to make war upon all heretics. "Give me," said he, "O emperor, the earth free from heretics, and I in return will give you heaven. Conquer the heretics with me, and I will assist you in conquering the Persians." Although this declaration was highly acceptable to the mass of the people, who hated the heretics; yet, says Socrates, the wiser sort condemned his pride and arrogance, and expressed their surprize, that a man who had scarcely tasted the water of the city, should avow his determination to persecute those who were not of his own opinion. Within five days after his ordination he began to execute his threatenings, and reduced the Arians to such despair, by attempting to deprive them of the place in which they held their private assemblies, that they set fire to it themselves, and many of the neighbouring houses were consumed along with it. From this circumstance he generally obtained the name of the incendiary. He endeavoured to suppress the Novatians, from the jealousy, says Socrates, which he entertained of Paul, their bishop, who was eminent for sanctity of manners; but the emperor restrained his violence. He also carried on a persecution against

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