NERO 



NERVAL 



439 



37, and was the son of Cn. Domitius Aheno- 

 barbus and of the younger Agrippina, the daughter 

 of Germanicus Csesar, and sister of Caligula. 1 1 is 

 mother became the wife of the Emperor Claudius, 

 who adopted him (50), his name, originally L. 

 Domitius Ahenobarbus, being changed to Nero 

 Claudius Csesar Drusus Germanicus. After the 

 death of Claudius (54) the Pni'torian Guards, at 

 the instigation of Afranius Burrns, their prefect, 

 declared him emperor, instead of Claudius's son 

 Britannicus, and their choice was acknowledged 

 both by the senate and by the provinces. His 

 reign began with the semblance of moderation and 



food promise, under the guidance of Burrus and 

 is tutor Seneca the philosopher ; but the baleful 

 influence of his mother, together with his own moral 

 weakness and sensuality, frustrated their efforts, 

 and he soon plunged headlong into debauchery, 

 extravagance, and tyranny. He caused the young 

 Britanmcns, the son of Claudius, to be treacher- 

 ously poisoned, and afterwards (59) his own mother 

 Agrippina to be murdered, in order to please his 

 infamous, and ambitions mistress Poppa-a Sahina. 

 To marry her he divorced and put to death his 

 neglected wife Octavia, the sister of Britannicus. 

 The Roman senate showed the depth of ite degrada- 

 tion by presenting an address congratulating the 

 hateful matricide on the death of Agrippina, but 

 Nero himself was ever haunted by the ghost of a 

 murdered mother. The affairs of the empire were 

 at this time far from tranquil. In 61 an insurrec- 

 tion broke out in Britain under Queen Boadicea, 

 which was suppressed by Suetonius Paulinus. 

 Next year saw an unsuccessful war against the 

 Parthian* in Armenia. At home the emperor 

 was lampooned in verse ; Burrus, a valuable friend, 

 died ; and even Seneca, though no rigid moralist 

 out of his books, thought it only decent to remove 

 from court. In July 64 occurred a great conflagra- 

 tion in Home, by which two-thirds of the city was 

 reduced to ashes. Nero himself is stated by all 

 authorities later than Tacitus to have len the 

 incendiary ; and we are told that he admired the 

 spectacle from a distance, reciting verses about the 

 burning of Troy. But he found a convenient scape- 

 goat in the mysterious sect of the Christians, many 

 of whom were put to death with unheard-of cruel- 

 ties, such as being wrapped in cloth steeped with 

 pitch, and set on tire in the imperial gardens. 

 Moreover, he rebuilt the city with great magnifi- 

 cence, and reared for himself on the Palatine Hill 

 a splendid palace, the famous 'golden house,' and 

 in order to provide for this expenditure and for the 

 gratification of the Roman |iopulace by spectacles 

 and distributions of corn Italy and the provinces 

 were plundered without ruth. A conspiracy against 

 Nero in the year 65 failed, and Seneca and the poet 

 Lucan fell victims to his vengeance. In a fit of 

 passion he murdered his wife Poppiea, by kicking 

 her when she was pregnant. He then offered his 

 hand to Antonia, the daughter of Claudius, but 

 was refused, whereupon he caused the too fastidi- 

 ous lady to be put to death, and married Statilia 

 Messallina, after putting her husband to death. 

 He also executed or banished many persons highly 

 distinguished for integrity and virtue. His un- 

 dignified vanity led him to seek distinction as a 

 poet, a philosopher, an actor, a musician, and even 

 a charioteer, and he received sycophantic applause, 

 not only in Italy, but in Greece, to which, upon 

 invitation of the Greek cities, he made a visit in 

 67. But in 68 the Gallic and Spanish legions, and 

 after them the Prn'torian Guards, rose against him 

 to make Galba emperor, and Nero fled from Rome 

 to the house of a freedman, Phaon, about four miles 

 distant. The senate now declared him an enemy 

 of his country, and the trembling tyrant saved 

 himself from execution by suicide, lith June 68. 



His last words throw light on his pitiful vanity 

 and on the cruel irony of fate that placed him on 

 a throne ' What an artist is lost in me. ' See 

 the articles ROME, SENECA, ANTICHRIST, APOCA- 

 LYPTIC NUMBER, &c. ; W. Wolfe Capes, Early 

 Roman Empire, and Merivale's History of the 

 Romans under the Empire. 



Neroli, OIL OF. See ORANGE. 



Nertcllilisk, a town of eastern Siberia, in 

 the Trans-Baikal Territory, on the Nertcha, a 

 tributary of the Shilka (which is a head-stream of 

 the Amur), 875 miles E. of Irkutsk. The district 

 of which it is the centre yields silver, lead, zinc, 

 tin, and gold ; and the town is a trading centre 

 for Russians, Mongols, Turcomans, and Tunguses, 

 exchanging tea, gunpowder, and furs. Pop. 3750. 

 See the Century Magazine, October 1889. Another 

 Nertchinsk, NERTCHINSKIY-ZAVOI), stands 180 

 miles SE., on a tributary of the Argun, and is 

 also a great mining centre. The silver-mines and 

 gold-mines are largely worked by convict labour, 

 and the pop. of the town, with tlie mines, is alxmt 

 5000. The soil in the vicinity is fertile, and the 

 climate mild and agreeable. 



Nerthns. See HERTHA. 

 Neruda, MADAME. See HALLE. 



Nerva, M. COCCEIUS. a Roman emperor, 

 elected by the senate after the murder of Domitian, 

 18th September 96 A.D. He was born in 32, of a 

 family belonging to Narnia, in Umbria, and twice 

 held the honour of consulship before his election 

 to the dignity of emperor. He displayed great 

 wisdom and moderation, rectified the administra- 

 tion of justice, and diminished the taxes ; but find- 

 ing himself, on account of his advanced age, not 

 vigorous enough to repress, the insolence of the 

 Prn'torian Guards, he adopted M. Ulpins Trajanus, 

 then at the head of the army of Germany, who 

 succeeded him on his death, 27th January 98. 



Nerval. GERARD DE, the adopted name of 

 Gerard Labrunie, one of the most attractive but 

 ill-starred figures among the French Romanticists, 

 was born at Paris, May 21, 1808, son of an officer 

 in the Grand Army. He was educated along with 

 Gautier at the Lycee Charlemagne, and early took 

 to letters, publishing at twenty a translation of 

 Faust which pleased Goethe, and gave his choruses 

 to Berlioz. Desultory work, a love-atlair cut 

 short by death, fits of restless travel, of dissipation, 

 and of gloom that at times deepened into mental 

 darkness, and at last death, almost certainly by 

 his own hand, 25th January 1855, sura up the 

 wretched story of his life. He moved in a romantic 

 dream-world all his days, squandered money when 

 he had it prodigally upon bric-a-brac, read deeply 

 in Greek, Italian, German, English, and Arabic, 

 and wandered carelessly over Italy, Germany, 

 Greece, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt Gerard de 

 Nerval wrote admirably alike in prose and verse, 

 his style ever delicate, natural, and original, informed 

 with a subtle personal charm of a quite remarkable 

 character. But his travels, criticism, plays, and 

 poems, good literature as they are, are far less in- 

 teresting than his Aurelie, ou le Reve et la Vie 

 (1855), an experience of his own madness. 'This 

 strange work, says Andrew Lang, 'does for insan- 

 ity what the Dream of Gerontius has done for 

 death.' In Les Illrnnintx, ou let Precurseurs du 

 Socialisms (1852), he discusses the mysticism of 

 certain highly endowed men in its relation to 

 mental alienation. But hi- most delightful work 

 will l>e found in his fantastic short tales, which 

 have an exquisiteness of their own that approaches 

 near perfection. These are the Conies et Farctie* 

 ( 1852), and the semi-antobiographic series of Fillet 

 de Feu, containing Sylvie, Angeligue, Jenny, 



