97 
N I O 
400 fmall-fized oxen, 6000 goats, and 300 (beep. Cheefe 
15 an article of exportation, but of little importance. The 
harbour is on the fouth-fouth-weft fide of theifland; and 
the town, feated on an eminence, is half a league from it; 
it is tolerably well built, and feems to occupy the fcite of 
the ancient city. Sonnini fays, that the inhabitants are 
liofpitable and affable; whereas Tournefort, in his time, 
has defcribed the Niots as thieves and robbers. The fes¬ 
tival of St. Gregory, celebrated by the Greeks in this 
ifland, as well as in fome others of the Archipelago, is 
confecrated to cock-roaches, which are here, particularly 
in fummer, very difgufting and troublefome ihfefts. They 
alfo note the feftival of St. John the Baptift ; and they 
abftain from undertaking any bufinefs of importance on 
the fame day of the week throughout the whole year, be- 
caufe fuperftition leads them to imagine that its iflue would 
be unprofperous. Lat. 36.46.N. Ion. 5.24. Olivier. Son- 
mm. 
NI'OBE, in fabulous hiftory, the daughter of Tanta¬ 
lus, and wife of Amphion king of Thebes ; by whom fhe 
had feven fons and as many daughters. Having become 
fo proud of her fertility and high birth as to prefer her- 
felf before Latona, and to flight the facrifices offered up 
by the Theban matrons to that goddefs, Apollo and 
Diana, the children of Latona, refented this contempt. 
The former flew the male children, and the latter the fe¬ 
male; upon which Niobe was ftruck dumb with grief, 
and remained without fenfation. Cicero is of opinion, 
that on this account the poets feigned her to be turned 
into ftone. 
The ftory of Niobe is beautifully related in the fixth 
book of the Metamorphofes of Ovid. That poet thus 
defcribes her transformation into ftone : 
Widow’d and childlefs, lamentable ftate ! 
A doleful fight, among the dead fhe fat; 
Harden’d with woes, a ftatue of defpair, _ 
To ev’ry breath of wind unmov’d her hair; 
Her cheek ftill redd’ning, but its colour dead, 
Faded her eyes, and fet within her head. 
No more her pliant tongue its motion keeps. 
But Hands congeal’d within her frozen lips. 
Stagnate and dull, within her purple veins,_ 
Its current flopp’d, the lifelefs blood remains. 
Her feet their ufual offices refufe. 
Her arms and neck their graceful geftures lofe : 
Aflion and life from every part are gone, 
And ev’n her entrails turn to folid ftone. 
Yet ftill fie weeps; and, whirl’d by ftormy winds, 
Borne through the air, her native country finds ; 
There fix’d, fhe ftands upon a bleaky hill; 
There yet her marble cheeks eternal tears diftil. 
A very beautiful Grecian fculpture of this ftory is ftill 
extant. Here Niobe is reprefented as in an ecftacy of 
grief for the lofs of her offspring, and about to be con¬ 
verted into ftone herfelf. She appears as if deprived of all 
fenfation by the excefs of herforrow, and incapable either 
of fhedding tears or of uttering any lamentations, as has 
been remarked by Cicero in the third book of his Tuf- 
culan Quefcions. With her right hand fhe clafps one of 
her little daughters, who throws herfelf into her bofom ; 
which attitude equally fliows the ardent affeftion of the 
mother, and expreffes that natural confidence which 
children have in the protection of a parent. The whole 
is executed in fuch a wonderful manner, that this, with 
the other ftatues of her children, is reckoned by Pliny 
among the moft beautiful works of antiquity ; but he 
doubts to which of the Grecian artifts, Scopas or Praxiteles, 
he ought to afcribe the honour of them. We have no 
certain information at what period this celebrated work 
was tranfported from Greece to Rome, nor do we know 
where it was firft erefted. Flaminius Vacca only fays, 
that all thefe ftatues were found in his time not far from 
the gate of St. John, and that they were afterwards placed 
by the grand duke Ferdinand in the gardens of the Villa 
Vol. XVII. No. 1164. 
N I O 
de Medici near Rome. An ingenious and entertaining 
traveller (Dr. Moore), fpeaking of the ftatue of Niobe, 
fays, “ The author of Niobe has had the judgment not 
to exhibit all the diftrefs which he might have placed in 
her countenance. This confummate artift was afraid of 
difturbing her features too much, knowing full well that 
the point where he was to expeCl moft fympathy was there, 
where diftrefs co-operated with beauty, and where our 
pity met our love. Had he fought it one ftep farther in ex- 
predion, he had loft it.” 
In the following epigram this ftatue is aferibed to 
Praxiteles: 
'Ey. ©sol 0 ev o’CivXiQov. Ex S'e At0o»o 
Zwr,i> IIga|iTE?i>)? ey.'jra.'Kiv iijiyu.o-a.ro. 
While for my children’s fate I vainly mourn’d. 
The angry gods to mafiy ftone me turn’d ; 
Praxiteles a nobler feat has done, 
He made me live again from being ftone. 
The author of this epigram, which is to be found in the 
4th book of the Anthology, is unknown. The elder 
Scaliger, in his Farrago Epigrammatum, aferibes it to 
Callimachus; but this appears to be only conjefture. 
NI'ON, a town of Swifterland, and capital of an exten- 
five bailiwick in the canton of Berne, near the Lake of 
Geneva ; the refidence of a bailiff; fuppofed to have been 
a Roman town, and called Noviodunum. In the town and 
environs many medals, urns, and antiquities, have been 
difeovered. Here is a manufacture of beautiful porcelain. 
It is eleven miles north of Geneva. Lat. 46.24. N. Ion. 
6. 6. E. 
NI'ONS, a town of France, and principal place of a 
diftrift, in the department of the Drome: twenty miles 
north-eaft of Orange, and twenty-one fouth-eaft of Mon- 
telimart. Lat. 44. 22. N. Ion. 5. 13. E. 
NIORT', a town of France, and capital of the depart¬ 
ment of the Two Sevres, on the river Sevre Niortoife: 
three pofts and a halfeaft-fouth-eaft of Fontenay le Comte, 
and nine and a half fouth-weft of Poitiers. Lat. 46. 19. N. 
on. o. 23. W. 
NIO'TA, f. [a barbarous name adopted by Lamarck 
and Poiret, from the Hortus Malabaricus.] In botany,a 
genus of the clafs monogynia, order oCtandria, natural 
order guttiferae, Jujf. Generic characters—Calyx : peri- 
anthium inferior, of one leaf, in four fhallow rounded 
fegments, permanent. Corolla : petals four, equal, ob¬ 
long, fpreading, broad at the bafe. Stamina : filaments 
eight, inferted into the receptacle, awl-fhaped, equal, 
rather fhorter than the corolla ; antherse incumbent, ar- 
row-lhaped. Piftillum: germen fuperior, four-lobed, 
probably four-celled ; ftyle central, awl-fhaped, the length 
of the ftamens ; ftigma fitnple. Pericarpium : capfule l’o- 
litary, ovate, withafhort oblique point, thick and woody, 
of one cell, apparently not burfting. Seed : folitary, 
oval, filling the cavity .—Ejfential Charatter. Calyx in 
four rounded fegments ; petals four, fpreading, much 
longer than the calyx; germen four-lobed, ftigma fim- 
ple ; capfule folitary, ovate, woody, of one cell, filled by 
the folitary feed. 
Niota pendula, a fingle fpecies. Gathered by Com- 
merfon in Madagafcar. Rheede fays his plant grows in 
fandy ground on the coaft of Malabar, as well as in Cey¬ 
lon. He defcribes it as a lofty tree, as thick as a man’s 
body ; the wood white and bitter. So we find it in Com- 
merfon’s lpecimen. The leaves in that fpecimen are al¬ 
ternate, on ftalks nearly an inch long, elliptic-oblong, or 
fomewhat obovate, obtule, with a very flight blunt point, 
entire, coriaceous, fmooth and (hining, four inches long, 
and above one broad, furnifhed with one rib, and a mul¬ 
tiplicity of finely-reticulated veins. Flowers about as 
large as thofe of an orange, to which genus the younger 
Linnaeus fufpe&ed this plant might belong; the petals 
are elliptic-oblong, obtufe, folding laterally over each 
other in the bud, finely downy externally; Rheede fays 
they are on one fide of a yellowifh white, on the other 
C c (we 
