NERI (Χηρεί Tisch. Treg. WH; Νηρί TR).—An ancestor of Gimnk, Lk 3”. See next article.
NERIAH (77). — The father of Baruch, Jer 32 [Gr. 39] 13.156 36 [43] * δ § 43 [60] "ὁ 45 [51]? 51 [28] ὃ In Bar 1 the Greek form of the name, Neriag (Nnp(e)las), is retained. The same name appears in another Greek form Neri (Νηρ(ε)) in St. uke’s
enealogy of our Lord, according to which one Neri was the father of Shealtiel, Lk 3”.
NERIAS (Nnplas).—The Greek form of the name NERIAH (wh. see). It occurs only in Bar 1} as the name of the father of Baruch.
NERO (Népwv).—The name of Nero does not occur in the NT, but he is the ‘Cesar’ to whom St. Paul appeals in Ac 25"; before whose tribunal] he was twice tried (assuming an earlier acquittal and later reimprisonment) ; and in whose imperial establishment the apostle had fellow-believers and probably converts (Ph 4”).
Nero’s reign covers an important period of NT history, and his attitude towards the early Church had a memorable influence on its fortunes. Born in A.D. 37, of parents—Domitius and Agrippina— who both belonged to the family of the Czesars,* Nero was destined from childhood for the imperial throne by his ambitious mother, who first (A.D. 49) secured her own marriage to the emperor Claudius, her uncle; then the betrothal of Nero and Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina (the marriage being consummated four years later) ; finally, in A.D. 50, the adoption of Nero as the emperor’s son and designated successor, with the eunernera of Claudius’ own son, Britannicus. When Claudius died suddenly, in A.D. 54,+ Nero, mainly through his mother’s strategy, was peace- fully accepted as emperor by army, senate, and people (Tac. Ann. xii. 68, 69).
rajan is said (Aur. Vict. Epit. Nero) to have described the first quinquennium of Nero’s τοῖα as far superior to any other period of imperial rule. During those years he was under the guidance of Seneca, the philosopher (his tutor in boyhood), and of Burrus, prefect of the pratorian guard, an honest and virtuous soldier. By these counsellors the influence of Agrippina, originally potent, was at an early stage counteracted, and eventually sup- planted.t The emperor’s exemplary clemency § in the beginning of his reign ; his habitual accessi-
* Agrippina was a great-granddaughter of Augustus, and Domitius a grandson of Octavia the sister of Augustus.
ἡ According to Pliny (ΗΝ xxii. 22), Tac. (Ann. xii. 66), and Suet. (Claud. 44), Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina. Suet., however, admits discrepancies 3 the reports as to occasion, administration of poison, and attendant circumstances.
Tac. Ann. xiii. 2, δ, 6, 21, xiv. 2. At the outset of his reign Nero gave, on one occasion, as military watchword, ‘The best of mothers.’
§ Sen. de Clem. 1.1, 11, iL 1; Tac. Ann. xiii. 11; Suet. Nero, 10. The assassination of Silanus, soon after Nero's accession, was without his knowledge, and the compulsory suicide of Narcissus against his desire (Tac. Ann. xiii. 1); Agrippina being in both cases the responsible agent.
NERO
bility and liberal provision of s les and gesses (Suet. Nero, 10, 11); his constitutional recognition of the authority of the senate (Tac. Ann, xiii. 45) ; his laudable endeavours to mitigate taxation and gn pa ΕΣ gs (ib. 50, τ aoe is vigorous forei icy against Parthian aggression and Betti: en retin call this secured favour for Nero personally, as well as respect for his government. It caused, also, some toleration to be extended to his excessive vanity, adulterous amours, and scandalous nocturnal esca- pades, when he roamed in disguise throughout the city, and committed outrages on peaceful citizens (Tac. Ann. xiii. 12, 25, 46).
It is difficult to believe that, within the first year of his reign, Nero (without his mother’s complicity and against her desire) deliberately poisoned Britannicus, his brother through adop- tion, a boy of fourteen. The pany incidental reference (c. 78 A.D.) to the murder by Josephus (BJ τι. xiii. 1), and the later detailed account of Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 15 ff.), followed by Suetonius (Nero, 33) and Dio (61. 7. 4), amply prove that the crime was attributed to Nero soon after, if not before, his death. Motives are found in Nero’s - youthful jealousy and fear of an imperial rival whom even Agrippina might support. But (1) the remark of Tacitus (Amn. i. 1) must be kept in mind that the histories of Nero and other oy emperors were ‘during their reign falsified through fear, and after death fabricated through hatred’ ; (2) Seneca, writing soon after Britannicus’ death (de Clem. i. 11), declares that Nero had never shed the blood of a Roman citizen nor of any human being in the world; (3) the details of the alleged murder are not inconsistent with Nero’s own allegation that Britannicus died in a fit of epilepsy.t Sudden death was frequently ascribed to poison; and the later undoubted crimes of Nero might induce belief in his earlier guilt.
Nero’s connexion (from A.D. 58) with Poppa (the wife of Otho, afterwards emperor), and her fatal ascendency over him, became the chief factor in his thorough demoralization, and a direct or indirect occasion of many of his crimes. Poppa coveted the pportsion of empress, and determined to secure the divorce and removal of the neglected Octavia. Agrippina’s remanent influence stood in the way, and must be destroyed. Nero had already been partially alienated from his mother by her interference with his private habits as well as imperial administration ; and her vindictive dis- position had raised up enemies against her in the court. Poppa fostered filial estrangement and encouraged the animosity of courtiers. The issue was Agrippina’s tragic death, of which two con- flicting accounts have come down, both inherently improbable—(1) Nero’s own statement to the senate (Tac. Ann. xiv. 11) that Agrippina, foiled in an at- tempt to compass his death, had atoned for her crime by suicide. An ambitious woman might have con- spired against a court-party from which she was excluded ; but Nero’s death would have destroyed her one hope of egeaning power. (1) The account of Tacitus (xiv. 3-8), followed by suetonius (Nero, 34), that Nerowas guilty of deliberate and persistent matricide, employing his freedman Anicetus, first to cause Agrippina to be shipwrecked, and then, on her escape, to assassinate her. The details of