Nereus
Son of Pontus and Gaea, and husband of Doris, by whom he became the father of the fifty Nereides. He is described as the wise and unerring old man of the sea.
Nero, Claudius Domitius Caesar. A celebrated Roman emperor, son of Caius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. His name is the synonym for cruelty and vice. In the night it was his wont to sally out from his palace to visit the meanest taverns and the different scenes of depravity that were to be found. He appeared on the stage, sometimes representing the meanest characters. He resolved to imitate the burning of Troy, and caused Rome to be set on fire in different places, the flames being unextinguished for nine days, and he enjoyed the terrible scene.
During the conflagration he placed himself on the top of a tower and sang, accompanying himself on a lyre, of the destruction of Troy. Many conspiracies were formed against him, the most dangerous of which he was saved from by the confession of a slave.
He killed himself, A. D. 68, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of thirteen years and eight months. Wretch that he was, it is said that he had some few to mourn for him, and Suetonius records that some unseen hand had placed flowers on his tomb.
This incident is alluded to by Lord Byron in these exquisite lines at the end of the third canto of Don Juan : "When Nero perish'd by the justest doom, Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd, Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb; Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void Of feeling for some kindness done when power Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour."
Nerva, M. Cocceius. A Roman emperor after the death of Domitian, A. D. 96. He rendered himself popular by his mildness and generosity. In his civil character he set an example of good manners and sobriety. He made an oath that no senator should suffer death during his reign, which he carried out by pardoning two members of the senate who had conspired against his life. He died in his seventy-second year, A. D. 98, and was succeeded by his son Trajan.