157 



KEPOS, FLAVIUS JULIUS. 



NERO, CLAUDIUS CAESAR. 



453 



been translated into English by Sir Matthew Hale, 1677, and by the 

 Rev. E. Berwick, 1813. 



The editions of the 'Vitse Imperatorum' are numerous : those of 

 Longolius, 1543; Lambinus, 1569 ; Bosins, 1657; Van Staveren, 1 734, 

 1773; Tzachucke, 1804 ; Harles, 1806; Fischer, 1806; Breme, 1827; 

 Roth, Basel, 1841. and Benecke, Berol. 1843, are reckoned the best 



XKPOS, FLAVIUS JULIUS, was the nephew of the patrician 

 Marcellinus, who, in the confusion into which the affairs of the 

 Western Empire had fallen after the death of Majorianus, A.D 460, 

 made himself independent sovereign of Dalmatia, was acknowledged 

 as such by Leo I. emperor of the East, and was afterwards killed in 

 Sicily in an expedition against the Vandals. Leo, having given his 

 niece in marriage to Nepos, named him Emperor of the West, A.D. 



473, after the death of Olybrius. But a certain Glycerins, supported 

 by the Burgundian and other barbarian auxiliaries who were then 

 the real masters of Italy, had already been proclaimed emperor at 

 Ravenna. Nepos sailed from Constantinople with some troops in 



474, and landing at Ostia, surprised Glycerius in Rome, made him 

 prisoner, and, having stripped him of the imperial garments, caused 

 him to be ordained bishop of Salona in Dalmatia, which was con- 

 sidered as a kind of exile. Nepos made peace with Euric, king of 

 the Visigoths, by ceding to him the provinces of Gaul which lay west 

 of the Rhone. But soon after, A.D. 475, Orestes, a native of Pannonia, 

 who had long served in the Roman armies, revolted against Nepos, 

 nud marched upon Ravenna, when the emperor, unable to oppose 

 him, fled across the sea to Dalmatia, over which province he seems 

 to have retained his authority, with the title of Augustus ; whilst 

 Orestes had his own infant son Romulus proclaimed emperor of the 

 West. Nepos applied in vain to Zeno, emperor of the East, to assist 

 him in recovering Italy. In the year 480 be was murdered at Salona 

 by two officers of his court, upon which Odoacer, who then ruled over 

 Italy, passed over into Dalmatic and conquered that province. Nepos 

 is said to have been a good and amiable but weak man, and unfit for 

 the times. Sidooius Apollinaris praises him for the excellent choice 

 which he made of those whom he employed under him. 



NKR'ATIUS PRISCUS, a Roman jurist who lived under Trajanus 

 and Hadrianus. Spartianus ('Hadrianus' 4) states that there was a 

 general opinion that Trajanus once intended to make Neratius Priscua 

 his successor in the empire, instead of Hadrianus. However, Priscus 

 was employed by Hadrianus as he had been by Trajanus. A case is 

 mentioned (Dig. 37, tit. 12, s. 5) in which Trajanus acted on the 

 advice of Neratius Priscus and T. Aristo. Pompouius (Dig. 1, tit. 2, 

 a. 2, 5 47) states that Neratius was elevated to the consulship, but the 

 year of hid consnlthip is not certain. 



Neratius succeeded Celsus the father, and was therefore of the 

 Fchool of Proculus. Hia writings which are mentioned in the 

 Florentine Index, are fifteen books of Regulee, seven of Mcmbrauri?, 

 and three books of Responsa. There are sixty-four excerpts from 

 Neratius in the Digest. Neratius is often cited by the subsequent 

 jurist*. He is also mentioned by Gellius (iv. 4) as the author of a 

 treatise De Nuptiis, but in place of Neratius some manuscripts have 

 Veratius in this passage of Gellius. 



NKRI, FILIPI'O DE', was born in 1515 of a noble Florentine family. 

 After studying in his native country he proceeded to Rome, where he 

 fixed his residence. Naturally of warm feelings and benevolent dis- 

 position, he turned his whole attention to the relief of tho poor, the 

 instruction of children, and the reclaiming of vicious persons. In the 

 pursuit of these object* he displayed a sincerity and a single-heartedness 

 which exposed him to the sneers and the slanders of the worldly, the 

 prudish, and the sticklers for outward decorum. The particulars of 

 his life, some of which are very carious, have been fully narrated by his 

 biographers Bacci and Gallonio. He founded an asylum for poor and 

 sick strangers, and other houseless or helpless persons, in which they 

 were sheltered until they were able to return to their home. Having 

 taken holy orders, he associated with himself several pious friends, 

 among whom was Baronius, afterwards a cardinal. They performed 

 spiritual exerci-es together, and instructed the poor, and especially 

 youths, in the streets, at the doors of the churches, and in the market- 

 places. He attended the sick and the dying, visited the prisoners, and 

 ple.ft.did in the courts of justice for the oppressed. 



Neri was not gloomy or morose; bis piety was not repulsive; he 

 conversed freely with all kinds of people ; and being a man of education 

 and general information, be entered into the spirit of their respective 

 pursuits, and joined in their harmless mirth, whilst he checked any 

 exerts or vicious tendency. He was the founder of tie oratorios, or 

 sacred musical entertainments, the object of which was to attract the 

 youth, and wean them from the public theatres and their temptations. 

 At first the oratorios were hymns which were sung after the sermon, 

 accompanied by music. Afterwards dramas were introduced, founded 

 upon scriptural subjects, and some of them were written by distin- 

 guished writers, such as Zeno and Metastasio, and the parts were sung 

 like those of an opera, with this difference, that there was no acting 

 or stage, the singers being stationed in a gallery of the chapel. The 

 chapel being called in Italian ' Oratorio,' that is, a place of prayers, 

 gave its name to the performance ; and the congregation, or order, 

 constituted by Neri took the name of ' Fathers of the Oratory.' But 

 Neri, more prudent in this than other founders of monastic orders, 

 did not bind the members of his congregation by perpetual vows : he 



said that the spirit of charity should be the only common bond. The 

 institution was approved of by Gregory XIII. in 1575, and it soon 

 spread over Italy, France, and other countries. The congregation 

 ' De 1'Oratoire ' has produced many distinguished men, Baronius and 

 Masillon among others. Study, preaching, and the education of youth, 

 are the chief occupations of its members. Their handsome church at 

 Rome, Santa Maria in Vallicella, has a good library, and the oratorios 

 continue to be performed in a chapel devoted to the purpose. Neri, 

 after resigning the generalship of his congregation to his disciplo 

 Baronius, died in 1595. He was canonised by Gregory XV. Some of 

 his letters, and his 'Ricordi,' or advice to youth, have been published, 

 as well as two sonnets out of many which he composed. He was an 

 amiable, virtuous, and religious man, and his example had a great 

 influence on the clergy of Rome. 



NERI, POMPE'O, was born at Florence in 1707. After studying 

 in the University of Pisa, he was made professor of law in that insti- 

 tution. He was afterwards appointed by Francis of Lorraine, the new 

 Grand Duke of Tuscany, secretary to his council. In 1749 Maria 

 Theresa called him to Milan, and made him president of the Giunta di 

 Censimento, or commission for the valuation of all the landed property 

 in Lombardy. This undertaking was etfected, and the tax was laid 

 equally upon all lauded property : the new ' Cadastro,' or register, was 

 published in 1759. The communal administration was at the same 

 time re-organised. This example was followed by several Italian and 

 other governments. The empress also commissioned Neri to confer 

 with the Sardinian minister for a concordat concerning the currency 

 of both states. It was in consequence of this commission that Neri 

 wrote and published his book on currency, ' Osservazioni sopra il 

 Prezzo Legate delle Monete,' 1751. In 1758 Neri, being recalled to 

 Florence, was named one of the counsellors of the regency during the 

 minority of Leopold. He died at Florence in 1776. Besides the work 

 above mentioned, he wrote other treatises on political economy, on 

 taxation, on the municipal laws in Tuscany, and on the former con- 

 trasted with the actual condition of the nobility in that country. Neri 

 rauks among the first Italian economists of the 18th century, with 

 Carli, Verri, Genovesi, and others. 



NERO, CLAU'DIUS C^KSAR, the sixth of the Roman emperors, 

 was born at Antium in Latium, in the latter end of A.D. 37, nine 

 months after the death of Tiberius. (Suet., ' Nero,' c. 6.) He was the 

 son of Domitius Abenobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter of Ger- 

 manicus, and was originally uamed Lucius Uomitius. After the death 

 of Domitius and of a second husband, Crispus Passienus, Agrippina 

 married her uncle the Emperor Claudius, who gave his daughter 

 Octavia in marriage to her sou Lucius, and subsequently adopted him 

 with the formal sanction of a LexjUuriata. (Tacit, ' Ann.,' xii. 26.) 

 The education of Nero was carefully attended to in his youth. He 

 was placed under the care of the philosopher Seui'Ca, and he appears to 

 have applied himself with considerable perseverance to study. He is 

 said to have made great progress in the Greek language, of which he 

 exhibited a specimen iu his sixteenth year by pleading in that tougue 

 the rights or privileges of the Rhodians and of the inhabitants of 

 Ilium : but he possessed little oratorical skill. (Suet., ' Nero,' c. 7 ; 

 Tacit, ' Ann.,' xii. 58.) 



On the death of Claudius, A.L>. 54, Nero succeeded to the sovereign 

 power. Agrippina, who had paved the way for the accession of her 

 son by the murder of her husband, endeavoured to obtain the chief 

 management of public affairs ; and her vindictive and cruel temper 

 would have hurried Nero, at the commencement of his reign, into 

 acts of violence and bloodshed, if her influence had not been counter- 

 acted by Seneca and Burrus, to whom Nero had iutrusted tho govern- 

 ment of the state. Through their counsels, and whilst he submitted 

 to their control, the first five years of Nero's reign were distinguished 

 by justice and clemency. He discouraged public informers, refused 

 the statues of gold and silver which were offered him by the senate 

 and people, and used every art to ingratiate himself with the people : 

 but his mother was enraged to find that her power over him became 

 weaker every day, and that he constantly disregarded her advice and 

 refused her requests. His neglect of his wife Octavia, and his criminal 

 love of Acte, a woman of low birth, still further widened the breach 

 between him and his mother. She frequently abused him with the 

 most contemptuous language ; reminded him that he owed his elevation 

 to her, and threatened that she would inform the soldiers of the manner 

 in which Claudius had met his end, and would call upon them to sup- 

 port the claims of Britaunicus, the son of the late emperor. The 

 threats of his mother only served to hasten the death of Britannicus 

 [BBITANNICUS], whose murder forms the commencement of that long 

 catalogue of crimes which afterwards disgraced the reign of Nero. 



But while the management of public affairs appears from the testi- 

 mony of most historians to have been wisely conducted by Burrus and 

 Seneca, Nero indulged iu private iu the most shameless dissipation 

 and profligacy. He was accustomed, in company with other young 

 men of his own age, to sally into the streets of Romo during the night 

 in order to rob and maltreat the passengers, and even to break iuto 

 private houses and take away the property of the owuers. But these 

 extravagancies were comparatively harmless : his love for Poppiea, 

 whom he had seduced from Otho, led him into more serious crimes. 

 1'oppaja, who was ambitious of sharing the imperial throne, perceived 

 that she could not hope to obtain her object while Agrippiua was 



