Nelson, Stephen Smith, an American Baptist minister, was born in Jliddleboroiigh, Jlass., Oct. 5, 1772, graduated at Brown University in 1794, and was licensed to preach in 179(!. After supi)lying the Church at Hartford for two years, he was ordained pastor there in 1798, occasionally preaching in the neighborhood, particularly at Middletown. Wiiile in Hartford he took an active part in preparing " the Baptist Petition," an address to the Legislature on tlie subject of the griev- ances of" Dissenters" from the " Standing Order," which finally severed, in Connecticut at least, the union between Church and Slate in 1818. He was also appointed to prepare and forward a congratulatory address to Mr. Jefferson on his election as president of the United States. In 1801 he resigned his charge in Hartford, and became principal of a large academy at Sing Sing (then iSIouiit Pleasant), but in consequence of the war with Great Britain he removed in 1815 to Attleborough, Jlass., where his labors were very successful, and he afterwards had for a while charge successively of the churches in Plymouth, JIass., and Canton, Conn. In 1825 he removed to Amherst, Jlass,, where he continued
preaching occasionally until his death, Dec. 8, 1853. See Sprague, A nnals of the A mer. I'ulpit, vi, oGG.
Nelson, Lady Theophila. See Nelson, Robert.
Nelson, Thomas. See Nelson, MArrnEw.
r'emaean Games, one of the four great festivals of ancient (Jreece, deriving its name from .Xem^a, where it was celebrated, as Pindar tells us, in honor of Zeus. The games consisted of horse -racing, chariot -racing, ruiuiing, wrestling, boxing, throwing the spear, shoot- ing with the bow, and other warlike exercises. The vectors were crowned with a chajjlet of olive, and after- wards of green parsley. The Nem«an games were regularly celebrated twice in the course of every Olym- piad. They appear to have been discontinued soon after the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian. See Gardner, Faiths of the World, p. 524. See Games.
Nemalah. Sec Ant.
Nemar. See Li:oi'ai!I).
Nemeius was a frequent surname of Zeus, and un- der it he was worshipped at Nemea, where games were celebrated in his honor. See Nem.ban Gasies.
Nemesiaci was the name which was given to the officers of the goddess Nemesis, who presided over good fortune, and was the dispenser of faith. See Nemesis.
Nemesis (Sffuair, vengeance), a female Greek di- vinity, is most commonly described, according to Hesiod, as a daughter of Night, though some call her a daughter of Erebus (Ilygin. Fab. pncf.) or of Oceanus (Tzetz. A d. Lye. 88 ; Pausan. i, 33, 3 ; vii, 5, 1 ). Nemesis was a per- sonitication of the moral reverence for law, of the natu- ral fear of committing a culpable action, and hence of conscience, and for this reason she was mentioned to- gether with Aicioc, or Shame. In course of time, when an enlarged experience convinced men that a divine will found room for its activity amid the little occurrences of human life, she came to be considered as the ])ersoni- fication of the righteous anger of the gods, and as the power who constauily ].reMrves or restores the moral equilibrium of carl lily allair- preventing mortals from reaching that exce-Mve pmsperity which would lead them to forget the reverence due to the immortal gods, or visiting them with wholesome calamities in the midst of their happiness. Hence originated the latest and loftiest conception of Nemesis as the being to whom was intrusted the execution of the decrees of a strict retributive providence— the awful and mysterious aven- ger of wrong, punishing and humbling evil-doers in par- ticular. Nemesis was thus regarded as allied to Ate and the Eumenides. She is represented as the regula- tor of human affairs, disbursing at pleasure happiness or unhappiness, the goods and ills of life. She was also looked upon as an avenging deity, and as inflexibly severe to the proud and insolent (Pausanius, i, 33, 2). There was a celebrated temple sacred to her at Rliam- nus, in Attica, about sixty stadia distant from ^Mara- thon; hence Nemesis was sometimes called also Uham- nusia or Rhamnusis. In this temple iliere was a statue of the goddess, made from a block of Parian marble, which the Persians had brought thither to erect a trojihy of their expected victory at Marathon. Pausanias s.iys that this statue was the work of Phidias (Pausan. i, 33, 2, 3), but Pliny ascribes it to Agoracritus, and adds that it was preferred by iSI. Yarro to all other statues which existed (//iV. Nat. xxxvi, 4, 3). A fragment, sup- posed by some to be the liead of this statue, was found in the temple of Rhamiuis, and was presented to the British Sluseum in 1820 {Flgin and J'higaleian Mar- bles, i, 120; ii, 123). She w.is represented in the oiiler times as a young virgin, resembling Venus; in later times as ch)thed with the tunic and peplus, sometimes with swords in her hands and a wheel at her foot, a grifliin also having his right \mv/ upon the wheel; some- times in a chariot drawn by griffins. Nemesis is a freipicnt flgiire on coins and gems. The practice of rep- I resenting the statues of Nemesis with wings was first
NEMESIUS
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NENNIUS
introduced after the time of Alexander the Great by the inhabitants of Smyrna, who worshipped several goddess- es under this name (Pausan. vii, 5, 1 ; ix, 35, 2). Ac- cording to a myth preserved by Pausanias, Nemesis was the mother of Helena by Zeus; and Leda, the reputed mother of Helena, was only her nurse (Pausan. i, 33, 7) ; but this myth seems to have been invented in later times to represent the divine vengeance which was in- flicted on the (ireeks and Trojans through the instru- mentality of Helena. There was also a statue of Nem- esis in the Capitol at Rome, though we learn that this goddess had no name in Latin (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxviii, 5). See ^mith, Diet. of Greek and Bommi Bioff. and 3/ i/tk. s. V. ; Vollmer, Mytkolof/isckes Wurterbuch, s. v. ; West- cot t, Hand-book of Architoloriy, p. 194, 195.