NERBUDDA 



Ills 



NERO 



NERBUDDA, or NARBADA, nurbud'ah. a 



in India which the Hindus hold in special 



rding it in sacredness as second 



only to the River Ganges. Along its cut in 1 



SOU miles are places of pilgrimage. 



and it is considered an ad of great devotion to 



walk from the mouth to the source of the 



:n and back again on the opposite bank. 



journey takes from one to two years to 

 complete. The Xerbudda rises in the Maikal 

 Range, in the northern section of the Central 

 Provinces, and empties into the Gulf of Cam- 

 b.iy through an estuary which begins 200 miles 

 north of Bombay, at Broach. Its general direc- 

 tion is westerly, and in the upper half of its 

 course it makes it< way over many falls and 

 rapids. On the lower stream large vessels can 

 sail eighty-two miles from the mouth, in the 

 rainy season, and when the tides are favorable 



ling ships can ascend the estuary as far as 

 Broach, thirty miles from the sea. 



NEREIDS, nc'reidz, according to Greek 

 mythology, were the fifty daughters of Nereus 

 and Doris. The Nereids were beautiful and 

 friendly sea nymphs, attendants of Neptune 

 and Poseidon, the former of whom had a Ne- 

 n ill wife, Amphitrite. They were sometimes 

 represented as half human, half fish, but at 

 other times they were pictured as wholly hu- 

 man, riding on sea horses or other monsters of 

 the ocean. Thetis, mother of Achilles, was one 

 of the few well-known Nereids. See NEREUS. 



NEREUS, ne'reus, in Greek mythology, a 

 minor deity of the sea. He was famous only 



,ther of the fifty Nereids, and was often 

 called the old man oj the sea. He alone knew 

 tin way to the Garden of the Hesperides, and 

 one of Hercules' twelve tasks was to seize the 

 golden apples of the Hesperides. In Hercules' 

 hands, Nereus turned from fire to lion, from 

 lion to water, from water to smoke, until, ex- 

 hausted, he resumed his own shape and di- 

 rected tin victorious Hercules on his journey. 



\i:ia:ii)s; Hr.kt i u.>. 



NE'RO, Lucius DOMITIUS (37-68), for four- 

 teen years an emperor of Rome, and generally 



rded Bfl one of the most infamous of men. 

 His father was Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, 

 his mother the daughter of Germanicus Agrip- 

 pina, who in A. D. 49 was married to the Em- 

 peror Claudius. She at once began to scheme 

 for her son's succession to the throne, in the 

 place of Claudius' son Britannicus, and suc- 

 ceeded in inducing the emperor to adopt him. 

 When Claudius died in A.D. 54 the Praetorian 

 Guard and the Senate united in acclaiming 



NERO 

 From a bust in the I'lli/i 



Nero emperor, and lie was received with great 

 enthusiasm by the populace. For a time he 

 did nothing to endanger his popularity, for 

 Seneca, his tutor, practically directed the gov- 

 ernment and skilfully held Nero's passions in 

 check. 



A Reign of 

 Murder and Li- 

 cense. A quarrel 

 with his mother, 

 who had always 

 had great influ- 

 ence over him, 

 led to the murder 

 o f Britannicus, 

 whose cause she 

 had threatened to 

 espouse, and 

 Agrippina's death 

 followed in 59; 



she was killed by Gallery ' Florence, Italy. 

 her son's orders. From that time on he be- 

 haved like an animal that has tasted blood. 

 The slightest suspicion, however ungrounded, 

 against anyone was the sure forerunner of 

 speedy death. There were, of course, conspir- 

 acies against the emperor, and among those 

 who were put to death after the discovery 

 of one of these was Seneca, against whom 

 no proof was ever advanced. The emperor 

 plunged, also, into every kind of vice and 

 profligacy, and yet he demanded the adulation 

 of his people for his achievements as poet, ath- 

 lete, musician and philosopher. He journeyed 

 through Greece, taking part in all the public 

 games and contests, and granted privileges to 

 the province because of the way in which his 

 vanity was flattered. 



Rome Burned and Rebuilt. In A.D. 61 oc- 

 curred the insurrection in Britain under the 

 famous Boadicea, and in 64 the great fire took 

 place in Rome. For six days the conflagration 

 raged, and two-thirds of the city was de- 

 stroyed; because Nero showed himself un- 

 moved by the disaster, playing upon his fiddle 

 and reciting verses about the burning of Troy 

 while he gazed at the blazing city, he was very 

 generally accused of having been the incendi- 

 ary. There is no positive evidence that this 

 was true, but he feared the wrath of the peo- 

 ple and laid the blame upon the Christians, 

 who were persecuted in all parts of the empire. 

 He rebuilt the city on a far more magnificent 

 scale than before, constructing for himself a 

 wonderful home called the Golden House, in 

 which his orgies took place. 



