NEREUS
NEKO
83
4'°- ^) ; and generally, the rendering to every man of his due (Ro 13).
LiTBRATURE.— J. R. Seeley, Ecce Homo^^, 1873, chs. xvii.- xxiv. (cf. especially cli. xviii. with Ro 15- and parallels). For the reconciliation of Christian love to one's nei^jhboiir with righteous and reasonable self-reirard, see A. Plnnimer, St. Matthew, IDOO, pp. S4-89, ICC, 'St. Luke=,' ISUS. p. IS.', t.
C. H. Watkins.
NEREUS CSripciis, a Greek name, fairly coninion among slaves and freodiiien, and found in iiiscrip- tion.s of the Imperial household). — Nereus is the third of a "roup of Christians, his sister (proh.-ihly Nereis or Nerias by name) being the fourth, who with ' all the saints that are with them ' are saluted by St. Paul in Ro lti''\ The lirst two names, I'hilologusand Julia(7'7. c. ) may be those of husband and wife. If so, Nereus and his sister and Oly nip.as may have been their family, which formed the nucleus of ii church which met under their leader- ship at their house in Rome or Ephesus. Cf. possibly the ' household of Stephan.as ' in Corinth, who were ' the firstfruits of Achaia' and who 'set themselves to minister unto the saints' (I Co 16""). The relationship is, hov.ever, purely conjectural, as nothing further is known of any of these persons. That they formed with the other unnamed persons a household or district (eicivXTjffia), of which they had been the nucleus and therefore became the leaders, is extremely probable, or the men may have been the heads of separate small communities. The name Nereus was that of a minor sea-god, father of the Nereids, and it is significant that a Christian should have had no scruple in retaining it. (Other names of heathen deities borne by Christians mentioned in Ro 16 are Hermes [v."], Phoebe. [v.'].) The name is connected with legends of the early Roman Church (see Sanday-Headlam, ICC, 'Romans^,' Edinburgh, 1902, p. 428).
T. B. Allworthy.
NERO. — The future Emperor Nero received at birth, 15th December, 37, the names Lucius Domi- tius Ahenobarbus. His father was Gnoeus Boini- tius Ahenobarbus (consul, a.d. 32), on the mother's side grandnephew of the Emperor Augustus, and his mother was lulia Agrippina, daughter of Ger- manicus (died A.D. 59) and great-granddaughter of Augustus. Both were ])ersons of ungovernable temper and immoral character, and from the first their son had little chance of leading a noble life. Gna^us died in the year 40 when his son was barely three years old, and Agrippina, possessed by limit- less ambition, schemed soon after for a second marriage, with no less a person than the reigning Claudius himself (Emperor a.d. 41-54 ; see under CLAtlDlus), in spite of the fact that he was her uncle. Agrippina became tlie fourth wife of Claudius in A.D. 49, such marriages having been legalized by the Senate (Tac. Ann. xii. 5-6). She procured the recall of the philosopher Lucius Ann»us Seneca and made him instructor of her son. At the same time he was betrothed to Claudius' daughter Octavia. In the year 50 Claudius adopted Domitius, who thus became Tiberius Claudius Drusus Germanicus Cafsar (ac- cording to another view, Lucius Claudius Nero). Next year the young man assumed the dress of manhood and was given the consulship. At the same time Afranius Burrus, his military instructor, was made prefect of the pnctorian guards. In A.D. 53 the marriage with Octavia took place. Claudius' own son Britannicus (born 12th Feb. 41), who had been steadily pushed further and further into the background, happened to have to leave Rome through illness in the year 54. This gave Agrippina her opportunity, and with the help of two professional poisoners Claudius was put to death on 13th October. Nero Claudius Ca'.sar Augus- tus Germanicus, or, as he is later called, Impera-
tor Nero Claudius Ctesar Augustus Germanicus, was saluted Imperator by the soldiers, and their acclamation was ratilied by the Senate. Among his private rclationshi]is during his reign may be mentioned his passion for his Greek mistress Acte, his marriage in A.D. 62 with I'opjKea Sabina, wife of M. Saluiiis Otlio (one of his succe.ssors in the Empire), and the banishment and murder of his lirst wife Octavia at her instance. In A.D. 63 a daughter was born to Nero and Pojipa'a, but the child died shortly afterwards. His marriage with the male I'ythagoras took place in A.D. 64, and in ()5 the ileath of Poppa-a. In .')5 Nero had liritan- nicus poisoned and in 59 his mother was put to death by his order. She had committed every sin for his advancement, but had become intolerable. Nero died by his own hand or that of a slave on 9th June, 6S, leaving no descendant behind him. With him the Ca'sarian race, weakened by inter- marriage, debauchery, and ma(lness,came to an end.
A brief summary of the chief events of Nero's reign may now be given. It has become customary to repeat that his first five years were a model period of government. There was some dilHculty in holding this view, considering what the histori- ans have to tell us. But J. G. C. Anderson and F. Havertield have recently pointed out (see under Literature) that this opinion, put into the mouth of the Emperor Trajan by the late compiler Aurelius Victor {Liber de Cmsarlbu.s, ch. 5), does not refer to the first five j'ears, does tiot perhaps refer to any specific five years, but if it does, refers rather to the last five years, and in any case touches only Nero's building operatioms. His reign is best divitled into two periods— the first from ,'54 to 62, when the State was under the joint administra- tion of Seneca and Burrus, and the second from 62 to 68, when it was under the Emperor's sole rule. Neither period was undistinguished for good, and indeed the machinery of government was so ^jer- fected by Augustus that the mad behaviour ot an Emperor scandalized only the inhabitants of Rome, and had no etl'ect on the provinces, in which the real life of the Roman Empire lay. The adminis- tration of Seneca and Burrus led to the strengthen- ing of the power of the Senate. It also led to the overthrow of Agrippina's influence, which had been most powerful at the first. Nero's policy seems at first to have been one of laisscz faire. He was very young and fond of pleasure, and gratified his tastes to the full. The historians are occupied with details of his doings, and tell us little about Italian or Roman att'airs.