ntified with
the Poseidon of the Greeks, is represented with a trident in his hand as
his sceptre.

NEPTUNE, the remotest planet of the solar system at present known;
it is twice as far distant from the sun as URANUS (q. v.) is,
deemed before its discovery the remotest; its diameter is four times
greater than that of the earth, and it takes 60,126 days to revolve round
the sun, accompanied by a solitary satellite; it was discovered in 1846
by ADAMS (q. v.) and LEVERRIER (q. v.), who were guided
to the spot where they found it from the effect of its neighbourhood on
the movements of Uranus.

NERBUDDA, or NARBADA, a sacred river of India; has its source
in the Amarkantak plateau of the Deccan, and flows westward, a rapid body
of greenish-blue water, through the great valley between the Vindhya and
Satpura Mountains, reaching the Gulf of Cambay after a course of 800 m.,
the last 30 of which are navigable.

NEREIDES, nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea, daughters of Nereus, 60
in number, and attendant on Poseidon.

NEREUS, the god of the Mediterranean Sea, the son of Pontus and
Gaia, the husband of Doris, and father of the Nereides, represented as a
sage, venerable old man.

NERI, ST. PHILIPPO DI, Italian priest, born at Florence, of noble
family; founder of the Congregation of the Oratory; was known from his
boyhood as the Good Pippo, and he spent his life in acts of devotion and
charity (1515-1592). Festival, May 26.

NERO, Roman emperor from A.D. 54 to 68, born at Antium, son of Cn.
Domitius Ahenobarbus and of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus; after the
murder of Claudius, instigated by Agrippina, who 4 years previously had
become the emperor's wife, Nero seized the throne, excluding Britannicus,
the rightful heir; during the first 5 years of his reign his old tutors,
Seneca and Burrus, were his advisers in a wise and temperate policy, but
gradually his innate tendency to vice broke through all restraint, and
hurried him into a course of profligacy and crime; Britannicus was put to
death, his mother and wife, Octavia, were subsequent victims, and in 64
numbers of Christians suffered death, with every refinement of torture,
on a trumped-up charge of having caused the great burning of Rome,
suspicion of which rested on Nero himself; a year later Seneca and the
poet Lucan were executed as conspirators, and, having kicked to death his
wife Poppaea, then far advanced in pregnancy, he offered his hand to
Octav