As in the case of Ninib, Nergal appears to have absorbed a number of minor solar deities, which accounts for the various names or designations under which he appears, such as Lugalgira, Sharrapu ("the burner," perhaps a mere epithet), Ira, Gibil (though this name more properly belongs to Nusku, q.v.) and Sibitti. A certain confusion exists in cuneiform literature between Ninib and Nergal, perhaps due to the traces of two different conceptions regarding these two solar deities. Nergal is called the "raging king," the " furious one," and the like, and by a play upon his name-separated into three elements Ne-urugal "lord of the great dwelling "-his position at the head of the nether-world pantheon is indicated. In the astral-theological system he is the planet Mars, while in ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to be a symbol of Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi are probably intended to typify Ninib.

The name of his chief temple at Kutha was E-shid-lam, from which the god receives the designation of Shidlamtäea, "the one that rises up from Shidlam." The cult of Nergal does not appear to have been as widespread as that of Ninib. He is frequently invoked in hymns and in votive and other inscriptions of Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, but we do not learn of many temples to him outside of Kutha. Sennacherib speaks of one at Tarbisu to the north of Nineveh, but it is significant that although Nebuchadrezzar II. (606-586 B.c.), the great templebuilder of the neo-Babylonian monarchy, alludes to his operations at E-shid-lam in Kutha, he makes no mention of a sanctuary to Nergal in Babylon. Local associations with his original seat-Kutha-and the conception formed of him as a god of the dead acted in making him feared rather than actively worshipped. (M. JA.) NERI, PHILIP (FILIPPO DE) (1515-1595), Italian churchman, was born at Florence on the 21st of July 1515. He was the youngest child of Francesco Neri, a lawyer of that city, and his wife Lucrezia Soldi, a woman of noble birth, whose family had long served the state. He was carefully brought up, and received his early teaching from the friars at San Marco, the famous Dominican monastery in Florence. He was accustomed in after life to ascribe most of his progress to the teaching of two amongst them, Zenobio de' Medici and Servanzio Mini. When he was about sixteen years old, a fire destroyed nearly all his father's property. Philip was sent to his father's childless brother Romolo, a merchant at San Germano, a Neapolitan town near the base of Monte Cassino, to assist him in his business, and with the hope that he might inherit his possessions. So far as gaining Romolo's confidence and affection, the plan was entirely successful, but it was thwarted by Philip's own resolve to take holy orders. In 1533 he left San Germano, and went to Rome, where he became tutor in the house of a Florentine gentleman named Galeotto Caccia. Here he was able to pursue his own studies under the guidance of the Augustinians, and to begin those labours amongst the sick and poor which gained him in later life the title of "Apostle of Rome," besides paying nightly visits for prayer and meditations to the churches of the city and to the catacombs. In 1538 he entered on that course of home mission work which was the distinguishing characteristic of his life; somewhat in the manner of Socrates he traversed the city, seizing opportunities of entering into conversation with persons of all ranks, and of leading them on, with playful irony, with searching questions, with words of wise and kindly counsel, to consider the topics he desired to set before them.

In 1548 he founded the celebrated confraternity of the Santissima Trinità de' Pellegrini e de' Convalescente, whose primary object is to minister to the needs of the thousands of poor pilgrims who flock to Rome, especially in years of jubilee, and also to relieve the patients discharged from hospitals, but still too weak for labour. In 1551 he passed through all the minor orders, and was ordained deacon, and finally priest on the 23rd

but was dissuaded by his friends who saw that there was abundant work to be done in Rome, and that he was the man to do it. Accordingly he settled down, with some companions, at the hospital of San Girolamo della Carità, and while there tentatively began, in 1556, the institute with which his name is more especially connected, that of the Oratory. The scheme at first was no more than a series of evening meetings in a hall (the Oratory), at which there were prayers, hymns, readings from Scripture, from the fathers, and from the Martyrology, followed by a lecture, or by discussion of some religious question proposed for consideration. The musical selections (settings of scenes from sacred history) were called oratorios. The scheme was developed, and the members of the society undertook various kinds of mission work throughout Rome, notably the preaching of sermons in different churches every evening, a wholly novel agency at that time. In 1564 the Florentines requested him to leave San Girolamo, and to take the oversight of their church in Rome, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, then newly built. He was at first reluctant, but by consent of Pius IV. he accepted, while retaining the charge of San Girolamo, where the exercises of the Oratory were kept up. At this time the new society included amongst its members Caesar Baronius, the ecclesiastical historian, Francesco Maria Tarugi, afterwards archbishop of Avignon, and Paravicini, all three subsequently cardinals, and also Gallonius, author of a well-known work on the Sufferings of the Martyrs, Ancina, Bordoni, and other men of ability and distinction.

The Florentines, however, built in 1574 a large oratory or mission-room for the society contiguous to San Giovanni, in order to save them the fatigue of the daily journey to and from San Girolamo, and to provide a more convenient place of assembly, and the headquarters were transferred thither. As the community grew, and its mission work extended, the need of having a church entirely its own, and not subject to other claims, as were San Girolamo and San Giovanni, made itself felt, and the offer of the small parish church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, conveniently situated in the middle of Rome, was made and accepted. The building, however, as not large enough for their purpose, was pulled down, and a splendid church erected on the site. It was immediately after taking possession of their new quarters that Neri formally organized, under permission of a bull dated July 15, 1575, a community of secular priests, entitled the Congregation of the Oratory. The new church was consecrated early in 1577, and the clergy of the new society at once resigned the charge of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, but Neri himself did not migrate from San Girolamo till 1583, and then only in virtue of an injunction of the pope that he, as the superior, should reside at the chief house of his congregation. He was at first elected for a term of three years (as is usual in modern societies), but in 1587 was nominated superior for life. He was, however, entirely free from personal ambition, and had no desire to be general over a number of dependent houses, so that he desired that all congregations formed on his model outside Rome should be autonomous, governing themselves, and without endeavouring to retain control over any new colonies they might themselves send outa regulation afterwards formally confirmed by a brief of Gregory XV. in 1622. Much as he mingled with society, and with persons of importance in church and state, his single interference in political matters was in 1593, when his persuasions induced the pope, Clement VIII., to withdraw the excommunication and anathema of Henry IV. of France, and the refusal to receive his ambassador, even though the king had formally abjured Calvinism. Neri saw that the pope's attitude was more than likely to drive Henry to a relapse, and probably to rekindle the civil war in France, and directed Baronius, then the pope's confessor, to refuse him absolution, and to resign his office of confessor, unless he would withdraw the anathema. Clement yielded at once, though the whole college of cardinals had supported his policy; and Henry, who did not learn the facts till several years afterwards, testified lively gratitude for the

XV. in 1622.

"Practical commonplaceness," says Frederick William Faber in his panegyric of Neri, was the special mark which distinguishes his form of ascetic piety from the types accredited before his day. "He looked like other men... he was emphatically a modern gentleman, of scrupulous courtesy, sportive gaiety, acquainted with what was going on in the world, taking a real interest in it, giving and getting information, very neatly dressed, with a shrewd common sense always alive about him, in a modern room with modern furniture, plain, it is true, but with no marks of poverty about it-in a word, with all the ease, the gracefulness, the polish of a modern gentleman of good birth, considerable accomplishments, and a very various information." Accordingly, he was ready to meet the needs of his day to an extent and in a manner which even the versatile Jesuits, who much desired to enlist him in their company, did not rival; and, though an Italian priest and head of a new religious order, his genius was entirely unmonastic and unmedieval; he was the active promoter of vernacular services, frequent and popular preaching, unconventional prayer, and unsystematized, albeit fervent, private devotion. Neri was not a reformer, save in the sense that in the active discharge of pastoral work he laboured to reform individuals. He had no difficulties in respect of the teaching and practice of his church, being in truth an ardent Ultramontane in doctrine, as was all but inevitable in his time and circumstances, and his great merit was the instinctive tact which showed him that the system of monasticism could never be the leaven of secular life, but that something more homely, simple, and everyday in character was needed for the new time. Accordingly, the congregation he founded is of the least conventional nature, rather resembling a residential clerical club than a monastery of the older type, and its rules (never written by Neri, but approved by Paul V. in 1612) would have appeared incredibly lax, nay, its religious character almost doubtful, to Bruno, Stephen Harding, Francis or Dominic. It admits only priests aged at least thirty-six, or ecclesiastics who have completed their studies and are ready for ordination. The members live in community, and each pays his own expenses, having the usufruct of his private meansa startling innovation on the monastic vow of poverty. They have indeed a common table, but it is kept up precisely as a regimental mess, by monthly payments from each member. Nothing is provided by the society except the bare lodging, and the fees of a visiting physician. Everything else clothing, books, furniture, medicines must be defrayed at the private charges of each member. There are no vows, and every member of the society is at liberty to withdraw when he pleases, and to take his property with him. The government, strikingly unlike the Jesuit autocracy, is of a republican form; and the superior, though first in honour, has to take his turn in discharging all the duties which come to each priest of the society in the order of his seniority, including that of waiting at table, which is not entrusted in the Oratory to lay brothers, according to the practice in most other communities. Four deputies assist the superior in the government, and all public acts are decided by a majority of votes of the whole congregation, in which the superior has no casting voice. To be chosen superior, fifteen years of membership are requisite as a qualification, and the office is tenable, as all the others, for but three years at a time. No one can vote till he has been three years in the society; the deliberative voice is not obtained before the eleventh year. There are thus three classes of members-novices, triennials and decennials. Each house can call its superior to account, can depose, and can restore him, without appeal to any external authority, although the bishop of the diocese in which any house of the Oratory is established is its ordinary and immediate superior, though without power to interfere with the rule. Their churches are non-parochial, and they can perform such rites as baptisms, marriages, &c., only by permission of the parish priest, who is entitled to receive all fees due in respect of these ministrations. The Oratory chiefly spread in Italy and in France, where in 1760 there were 58 houses all under the government of a superior-general. Malebranche, Thomassin, Mascaron and

NERO (37-68), Roman emperor 54-68, was born at Antium on the 15th of December 37. He was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the younger, and his name was originally L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. His father died when Nero was scarcely three years old. In the previous year (39) his mother had been banished by order of her brother Caligula (Gaius) on a charge of treasonable conspiracy, and Nero, thus early Domitia, where two slaves, a barber and a dancer, began his deprived of both parents, found shelter in the house of his aunt training. The emperor Claudius recalled Agrippina, who spent the next thirteen years in the determined struggle to win for Nero the throne which had been predicted for him. Her first decisive success was gained in 48 by the disgrace and execution of Messallina (q.v.), wife of Claudius. In 49 followed her own marriage with Claudius, and her recognition as his consort in the government. The Roman populace already looked with favour on Nero, as the grandson of Germanicus, but in 50 his claims obtained formal recognition from Claudius himself, who adopted him under the title of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus.2 Agrippina's next step was to provide a suitable training for her son. The scholar L. Annaeus Seneca was recalled from exile and appointed his tutor. On the 15th of December 51 Nero completed his fourteenth year, and Agrippina, in view of Claudius's failing health, determined to delay no longer his adoption of the toga virilis. The occasion was celebrated in a manner which seemed to place Nero's prospects of succession beyond doubt. He was introduced to the senate by Claudius himself. The proconsular imperium and the title of princeps juventutis were conferred upon him. He was specially admitted as an extraordinary member of the great priestly colleges; his name was included by the Arval Brethren in their prayers for the safety of the emperor and his house; at the games in the circus his appearance in triumphal dress contrasted significantly with the simple toga praetexta worn by Britanricus. During the next two years Agrippina followed this up with energy. Britannicus's leading partisans were banished or put to death, and the allimportant command of the praetorian guard was transferred to Afranius Burrus, a Gaul by birth, who had been the trusted agent first of Livia and then of Tiberius and Claudius. Nero himself was put prominently forward. The petitions addressed to the senate by the town of Bononia and by the communities of Rhodes and Ilium were gracefully supported by him in Latin and Greek speeches, and during Claudius's absence in 52 at the Latin festival it was Nero who, as praefect of the city, administered justice in the forum. Early in 53 his marriage with 1 Tac. Ann. xii. 26, 36; see also Schiller, Nero, 67

2 Tac. Ann. xii. 26; Zonaras xi. 10.

Tac. Ann. xii. 41.

the general gloom was deepened by a pestilence, caused, it seems, by the overcrowding at the time of the fire.

"

There is, however, no doubt that this great disaster told against Nero in the popular mind. It was regarded as a direct manifestation of the wrath of the gods, even by those who did not suspect the emperor. This impression no religious ceremonies, nor even the execution of a number of Christians, as convenient scapegoats, could altogether dispel. But Nero proceeded with the congenial work of repairing the damage. In addition to the rebuilding of the streets, he erected a splendid palace, the golden house," for himself. The wonders of his Domus aurea were remembered and talked of long after its partial demolition by Vespasian. It stretched from the Palatine across the low ground, afterwards occupied by the Colosseum, to the Esquiline. Gold, precious stones and Greek masterpieces adorned its walls. Most marvellous of all were the grounds in which it stood, with their meadows and lakes, their shady woods and their distant views. To defray the enormous cost, Italy and the provinces, says Tacitus, were ransacked, and in Asia and Achaia especially the rapacity of the imperial commissioners recalled the days of Mummius and of Sulla. It was the first occasion on which the provincials had suffered from Nero's rule, and the discontent it caused helped to weaken his hold over them at the very moment when the growing dissatisfaction in Rome was gathering to a head. Early in 65 Nero was panic-stricken by the discovery of a formidable conspiracy involving such men as Faenius Rufus, Tigellinus's colleague in the prefecture of the praetorian guards, Plautius Lateranus, one of the consuls elect, the poet Lucan, and, lastly, not a few of the tribunes and centurions of the praetorian guard itself. Their chosen leader, whom they destined to succeed Nero, was C. Calpurnius Piso (q.v.), a handsome, wealthy and popular noble, and a boon companion of Nero himself. The plan to murder Nero was frustrated by a freedman Milichus, who, in the hope of a large reward, disclosed the whole plot. Piso, Faenius Rufus, Lucan and many of their less prominent accomplices, and even Seneca himself (though there seems to have been no evidence of his complicity) were executed.

But, though largesses and thanksgivings celebrated the suppression of the conspiracy, and the round of games and shows was renewed with even increased splendour, the effects of the shock were visible in the long list of victims who during the next few months were sacrificed to his restless fears and resentment. Conspicuous among them was Paetus Thrasea, whose unbending virtue had long made him distasteful to Nero, and who was now suspected, possibly with reason, of sympathy with the conspirators. The death of Poppaea in the autumn of Tac. Ann. xv. 38; Suet. Nero, 38; Dio Cass. Ixii. 16; Pliny, N.II xvii 5.

This work is a reply to C. Pascal's L'Incendio di Roma e i primi Cristiani (Milan, 1900), which throws the guilt on the Christians.

Tac. Ann. xv. 42: Suet. Nero, 31; cf. Friedländer. Sittengeschichte, iii. 67-69.

more.

Early, however, in the summer of 66, the Parthian prince Tiridates visited Italy. This event was a conspicuous tribute to the ability both as soldier and statesman of Cn. Domitius Corbulo. As long ago as 54 the news reached Rome that the Parthian king Vologaeses had expelled the king recognized by Rome from Armenia and installed in his place his own brother Tiridates. Orders were at once issued to concentrate all available forces on the Cappadocian frontier under Corbulo, the first soldier of his day. After some time spent in making his army efficient, Corbulo invaded Armenia and swept victoriously through the country. Armenia was rescued and Corbulo proposed that Tiridates should become king of Armenia on condition of his receiving his crown as a gift from Nero. But the government in | Rome had a plan of its own, and a certain Tigranes, long resident in Rome, but a stranger to the Armenians, was sent out, and Corbulo was obliged reluctantly to seat him on the Armenian throne. Tigranes's position, always insecure, soon became untenable, and it became necessary for Rome to intervene once A Roman force under Caesennius Paetus was sent to restore Tigranes and re-establish Roman predominance. Paetus, however, was no Corbulo. He was defeated, and Corbulo, now legate of Syria, was obliged to come to his rescue. The result was the final triumph of Corbulo's policy. Tiridates agreed to accept the crown of Armenia from the hands of Nero. In royal state he travelled to Italy, and the ceremony of investiture was performed at Rome with the utmost splendour. Delighted with this tribute to his greatness, Nero for a moment dreamt of rivalling Alexander. Expeditions were talked of to the Caspian Sea and Ethiopia, but Nero was no soldier and quickly turned to a more congenial field. He had already, in 64, appeared on the stage before the half-Greek public of Naples. But his mind was now set on challenging the applause of the Greeks themselves in the ancient home of art. Towards the end of 66 he arrived in Greece with a retinue of soldiers, courtiers, musicians and dancers. The spectacle presented by Nero's visit was unique. He went professedly as an enthusiastic worshipper of Greek art and a humble candidate for the suffrages of Greek judges. At each of the great festivals, which to please him were for once crowded into a single year, he entered in regular form for the various competitions, scrupulously conformed to the tradition and rules of the arena, and awaited in nervous suspense the verdict of the umpires. The dexterous Greeks humoured him to the top of his bent. Everywhere the imperial competitor was victorious, and crowded audiences importuned him to display his talents. The emperor protested that only the Greeks were fit to hear him, and rewarded them when he left by the bestowal of immunity from the land tax on the whole province, and by the gift of the Roman franchise; he also planned and actually commenced the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. If we may believe report, Nero found time in the intervals of his artistic triumphs for more vicious excesses. The stories of his mock marriage with Sporus, his execution of wealthy Greeks for the sake of their money, and his wholesale plundering of the temples were evidently part of the accepted tradition about him in the time of Suetonius, and are at least credible. Far more certainly true is his ungrateful treatment of Domitius Corbulo, who, when he landed at Cenchreae, fresh from his successes in Armenia, was met by an order for his instant execution and at once put an end to his life.

Meanwhile the general dissatisfaction was coming to a head, as we may infer from the urgency with which the imperial freedman Helius insisted upon Nero's return to Italy. Far more serious was the disaffection which now showed itself in the rich and warlike provinces of the west. In northern Gaul, early in 68, the standard of revolt was raised by Julius Vindex, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, and himself the head of an ancient and noble Celtic family. South of the Pyrenees, P. Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, and Poppaea's former 'Suet. Nero, 19-24: Dio Cass. Epit. Ixiii. 8-16.