in conjunction with the citizens of Antioch, near which capital he then lay, saluted him emperor with loud acclamations. All the eastern provinces recognized his elevation, and the surrounding satraps sent their congratulations. He received offers of assistance from the kings and governors in alliance with the empire; but he declined all foreign aid, in the confidence that he should meet with sufficient support from the subjects of Rome. This This confidence was the cause of his ruin. Instead of immediately marching to secure the capital, he wasted his time at Antioch in feasts and shows, and proved by his conduct that a man may appear highly respectable in an inferior situation, who wants talents and energy for the highest post. A formidable competitor had in the mean time declared himself. This was Septimius Severus, who was then at the head of the legions in Illyria, and who possessed all the vigour and policy requisite for such a contest. He marched to Rome, put an end to the short-lived reign of the wretched Didius, broke the mutinous and guilty pretorians, and procured an acknowledgment of his imperial title by the overawed senate. He temporized with Clodius Albinus, commander of the army in Britain, from whom he expected a competition; and then left the capital to oppose his formidable rival in the east. Niger, on the intelligence of the advance of Severus, resolved to spare him the trouble of meeting him in Asia; and having solicited those foreign aids which he at first refused, came in person to Byzantium. Proceeding into Thrace, he met a body of the troops of Severus at Perinthus, by whom he was foiled in his attempt to become master of that town. He then retreated to Byzantium, and commenced a negotiation with his rival, which was probably insincere on both sides, and proved fruitless. Severus in the mean time sent the best part of his army into Asia, where, near Cyzicus, they encountered Emilianus, the general of Niger, and entirely defeated him. This disaster obliged Niger to re-cross the Hellespont; and putting himself at the head of his forces in Bithynia, he met the army of Severus in the defiles between Nicæa and Cius. After an obstinate conflict, Niger was overcome, and fled beyond mount Taurus. He had previously fortified with great care the passes of this ridge between Cappadocia and Cilicia, and leaving them under a strong guard, he went to Antioch to levy new forces. A violent storm and torrent, however, at length over threw the barriers raised on Taurus, and the enemy penetrated into Cilicia. Niger again faced them near Issus, on the very spot in which Alexander gained a celebrated victory over Darius. He was again unfortunate, and sustained a bloody defeat, in which he lost 20,000 men. He fled from the field to Antioch, which he found full of consternation. Without stopping, he continued his flight, intending to take refuge among the Parthians; but being overtaken by the pursuing cavalry, he was killed before he could reach the Euphrates. This is the common account, but Spartian asserts that he was dangerously wounded, and being brought before Severus, died in his presence. His death occurred in the beginning of the year 195. The sanguinary victor wreaked his vengeance upon his wife and children, who, after being banished, were massacred, together with all of his name and family. Univ. Hist. Crevier.-A. NIGIDIUS FIGULUS, PUBLIUS, one of the most learned men of ancient Rome, was the contemporary and friend of Cicero, and a professed advocate for the doctrine of Pythagoras. Cicero gives him the character of an accurate and penetrating enquirer into nature, and ascribes to him the revival of that philosophy, which had formerly flourished for several ages. in the Pythagorean schools, both in Italy and Sicily. He was also a considerable proficient in mathematical and astronomical learning, and, after the example of his master, applied the knowledge of nature to the purposes: of imposture. He held frequent disputations. with Cicero and his friends on philosophical questions. His attachment to science and philosophy, however, did not prevent him from engaging in civil affairs, and filling the posts. of prætor, and senator. To his assistance Cicero acknowledged himself much indebted. in defeating Catiline's conspiracy; and he also received important services from him in the time of his adversity. In the civil war be tween Pompey and Caesar, he attached himself to the party of the former; and, upon Cæsar's accession to the supreme power, he was banished from Rome, and died in his state of exile. After his time the Pythagorean doctrine was much neglected; few persons being now able: to decypher, with accuracy, the obscure dogmas of this mysterious sect. Nigidius wrote: several books upon various subjects; but only fragments of them have reached modern times,, which may be seen in the third book of Janus Rutgers's "Varia Lectiones," and Anthony and for some time he occupied a chair at BoRicoboni's "Comment de Hist. &c." Aulii logna. In 1519, he removed to Pisa, where Gellii Noct. Attic. Passim. Cicero de Universitate, he was offered a salary of seven hundred gold cap. i. Epist. Famil. lib. iv. ep. xiii. Bayle. florins. The prince of Salerno drew him again Moreri. Enfield's Hist. Phil. vol. II. book iii. to that city in 1525, in which, or at Sessa, he chap. 1.-M. appears to have passed the remainder of his days. The time of his death is uncertain; for whilst some fix it in 1537, others adduce a dedication of his to Paul III. in 1545, as a proof he was then living. There seems, however, to be good evidence that he died at Sessa, in January 1538. Nifo was a man of a mean and forbidding aspect, with the rustic pronunciation of his country, but full of pleasantry when animated in company. He was free and not very decorous in manners, and made himself ridiculous in his old age by his amorous extravagances, either real or affected. He lived much among the great, and seems to have been in easy circumstances; he possessed a fine and valuable library. This author wrote a great number of works, relative to the peripatetic philosophy, astronomy, medicine, rhetoric, ethics, politics, &c. which are all at present consigned to oblivion, so that a catalogue of them would be superfluous. Commentaries and translations of the works of Aristotle and Averrhoes compose the greater part. Some are on lighter topics, and in two of them he has transgressed the bounds of decency. It is to his praise that he refuted the impostures of astrologers, and was the first to deliver Europe from the terrors of a deluge which they had predicted for the year 1524. Tiraboschi. Bayle. Roscoe's Lea X.-A. NIFO, AGOSTINO, (Lat. Niphus) a celebrated philosopher and man of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was a native either of Jopoli in Calabria, or Sessa in the Terra di Lavoro. He received his education chiefly at Tropea in Abruzzo; and quitting his father's house, which was rendered uncomfortable to him by a mother-in-law, he went to Naples, where he undertook the instruction of youth. He accompanied some of his scholars to Padua, where, in 1492, he was chosen professor extraordinary of philosophy. He afterwards was advanced to the professorship in ordinary, and to the first chair. During his abode at Padua, he had imbibed from Niccolo Vernia the opinion of Averrhoes concerning the unity of spiritual substance, and that there is only one soul and intellect which animates all nature. This he maintained in a treatise, "De Intellectu & Dæmonibus," which brought upon him a formidable attack from the theologians, under which he might have sunk, had not Barazzi bishop of Padua kindly interposed, and induced him to correct some of the offensive passages of his work. To give further proof of his orthodoxy, Nifo published a refutation of the opinion of Pomponazzi on the immortality of the soul. Leaving Padua, he resided some time at Sessa, where he married, and had several children; and he regarded this place so much as his home, that he usually styled himself Suessanus. His reputation now spread throughout Italy, and he was successively invited to various schools of learning. The prince of Salerno engaged him to teach philosophy for some time in that city. About 1510 he appears to have held a chair in the university of Naples. In 1513 he was invited to Rome by.Leo X., who regarded him with particular favour, honoured him with the title of count Palatine, and conferred upon him the extraordinary privilege of using the name and arms of the Medici. For the good graces of this pontiff he was probably indebted not only to his philosophical acquisitions, but to his jocular and facetious turn in conversation, and to a levity which rendered him a happy subject of ridicule to the wits of that court. NIHUSIUS, BARTHOLD, a German catho lic divine and titular bishop, who acquired reputation by his writings in the seventeenth century, was born at Wolpe, in the duke of Brunswick's territories, in the year 1589. He was educated in the Lutheran religion, and, after studying for some time in the colleges of Verden and Goslar, went to the university of Helmstadt about the year 1607. His circumstances, however, being very narrow, he was under the necessity of entering into the service of Martinus, professor of logic, who allowed him some hours every day for study, and also gave him the advantage of his instructions, By the progress which Nihusius made, he reflected credit on his talents and industry, and obtained a recommendation to the patronage of the bishop of Osnaburgh, who allowed him He was a pension. He took his degree of master of a professor at Rome in the college of Sapienza, philosophy in the year 1612, and afterwards by chiefly supported himself for some years, giving private lectures to rich scholars in the university. In the year 1616, he was appointed tutor to two gentlemen, whom he attended to the university of Jena; and when the term of his engagement with them expired, he obtained a similar employment, with a handsome stipend, at the court of Weymar. Here he conceived a disgust against the Lutheran church, owing, it is said, to some affronts which he received, or his being disappointed of preferment, and he retired to Cologne, where he became a convert to the Roman catholic religion about the year 1622. His first employment was that of director of the college of proselytes; and he afterwards entered the lists in defence of the catholic cause, against Horneius and Calixtus, two celebrated protestant divines at Helmstadt. For an account of the articles which he published in this controversy we refer to Bayle. About the year 1626, he returned to the country of Brunswick to be director of a convent of nuns; and in 1729, he was made abbot of Ilfield. From this abbey he was driven by the Swedes in 1633; when he withdrew into Holland, where he was still a resident in the year 1649. Returning afterwards into Germany, he was made suffragan of the archbishop of Mentz, with the title of bishop of Mysia; and he died in the exercise of this office in 1657, when he was in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was the author of "Tractatus Chorographicus de nonnullis Asia Provinciis, ad Tygrim, Euphratem, et Mediter raneum ac rubrum Mare;" "Comment. Logic. de Enunciationibus et Syllogismis Modalibus;" "Epigrammata," &c.; but his principal works were controversial, and are enumerated by Bayle. Moreri. Witte Diar. Biog.-M. ་་ NINUS, the reputed founder of the Assyrian monarchy, would merit a high place among kings and conquerors, were the records of his actions within the limit of authentic history. But as the only voucher for his existence and the events of his reign is Ctesias of Gnidus, whose credit for veracity stands very low among critics, he can at best claim a place only among the semi-fabulous heroes. It is perhaps too much to doubt, with the writers of the Universal History, whether such a person ever lived, or to suppose that he has been confounded with the Egyptian Sesostris; but great deductions must be made from the narrative of Cresias and his transcribers, to reduce his his tory to the standard of probability. He is re presented as the son of Belus, and the chronology of that author requires placing the commencement of his reign as far back as B.C. 2059. Being of a very martial and ambitious disposition, he trained up a vast number of his subjects to the use, of arms; and having made an alliance with Ariæus, king of the Arabians, he marched into the district of Babylonia (the capital of that name not being as yet founded) and easily subdued it. He then invaded Armenia, the king of which, on making his submission, he left upon the throne as his vassal. He next overthrew and put to death the king of Media; and placing a confidential governor over that country, he proceeded to the conquest of the rest of Asia, all of which, except Bactria and India, he reduced to his dominion. minion. Returning to Assyria, he founded the mighty city of Nineveh, which is described as surpassing in magnitude all other capitals mentioned in history. He again took the field for the purpose of conquering Bactria, which had before resisted his arms; and the troops which he mustered on this occasion are stated at nearly two millions. He defeated the king of the country in the field, but made little progress in the siege of his strong capital. At this juncture, the husband of the famous Semiramis, who was a chief officer in the army of Ninus, impatient of the absence of his be loved spouse, sent for her to the camp before Bactra. This lady, who was as much distinguished for her understanding as her beauty, and moreover possessed a masculine courage, perceiving that the siege was feebly conducted, took a body of men with her, and climbing the rock upon which the citadel was seated, entered it, and thus gave the Assyrians the opportunity of becoming masters of the town. Ninus, first admiring her valour, was afterwards captivated by her beauty, and endea voured to persuade her husband to resign her to him. to him. He resisted as long as he was able, and finding at length that he must yield her by force, he killed himself. Ninus immediately raised the widow to his bed and throne, and had by her a son named Ninias. He brought back immense spoils from Bactria, and died after a reign of fifty years, leaving Semiramis regent of his wide dominions. Such is the history or legend of Ninus as recorded by Ctesias, and admitted by various writers of antiquity. If such events might in general have been credible at a later period of the world, the date assigned to them, which is somewhat earlier than the birth of the patriarch Abraham, seems to render them entirely incompatible with the received system of chronology. Didorus Siculus. Univers. Hist.-A. NITHARD, a historian of the ninth century, was the son of Angilbert abbot of St. Riquier, and of Bertha, daughter of the emperor Charlemagne. He was born before the year 790, and was probably educated at the court of his grandfather. It is supposed that he succeeded his father in the post of duke or count of the maritime coast, and that, in this quality, he served in the armies of Charlemagne. He was much attached to Louis le Debonnaire, and likewise to his son Charles the Bald, king of France. By this prince he was deputed in 840 to his brother the emperor Lothaire, in order to accommodate the differences between them; and in 842 he was one of the commissioners of Charles in regulating the partition of territory with Louis of Germany. The ill success of his endeavours to preserve peace between these brothers disgusted him with the court, from which he retired, and is thought to have embraced, the monastic life in the abbey of St. Riquier; though others suppose that he continued to serve in the army, and was only buried in that monastery. Nithard was the author of a valuable work containing the history of the divisions between the sons of Louis le Debonnaire. It was divided into four books, of which the three first were written in 842; the fourth is lost. His Latin His Latin style is obscure and embarrassed, but his narrative is methodical, and he was well informed in all he relates. This history was first published by M. Pithou in his "Annalium & Historiæ Francorum Scriptores coetanei," 1594; and afterwards more correctly by Duchesne and Bouquet in their collection of French historians. It was translated into French by Cousin in his "History of the Western Empire." Moreri.—A. NIVELLE DE LA CHAUSSE'E, PETER CLAUDE, an estimable dramatic writer, was born at Paris in 1692, of an ancient and respectable family. He received his early education at the Jesuit's college, and studied rhetoric and philosophy at Plessis. Though the nephew of a farmer-general, with the career of wealth and honours open before him, he rather chose to indulge his taste for literature. He wrote verses, which obtained the applauses of the friends to whom they were shown; and he carly contracted an acquaintance with La Motte, who encouraged him in the cultivation of his talents. When that eminent author, however, published his Fables, Nivelle was one of his critics; and on the publication of La Motte's system of prose-poetry, he attacked him more warmly in his "Epitre de Clio a M. de Berey," a poem which was much applauded. By the advice of his friends, he next turned his thoughts to dramatic composition, and produced a comedy entitled "La Fausse Antipathie." This piece was sufficiently successful to encourage him to proceed, and his next comedy, "Le Préjugé à-la Mode," was received with an applause that surpassed his expectations. This was followed by "L'Ecole des Amis," and by the tragedy of "Maximian." His reputation had now gained him admission into the French academy, and had also made him an object of that envy which seems more than ordinarily active among the French men of letters. He therefore chose to bring out his next comedy of "Melanide," as the work of a young unknown author. By this artifice he eluded opposition, and obtained a success well merited by the performance, which is reckoned his master-piece. His "Ecole des Meres" is, indeed, by some preferred to it; and his "Gouvernante" is the favourite with others. Of all these works it is, according to d'Alembert, the peculiar and distinguishing character that they form a school of morals, that they breathe virtue and inspire the love of it. the love of it. On this account, though they were by no means devoid of comic humour and lively action, they were ridiculed by his rivals under the title of cit-tragedies, and cryingcomedy. Piron, jealous of the success of Melanide, in the same year that his own Metromanie appeared on the stage, threw out many sarcasms on the sermonizing strain of this author, and said one day to a friend, "You are going, then, to hear father La Chaussée preach?" This jest was not forgotten; and Nivelle, though otherwise a man of amiable dispositions, opposed the election of Piron when a candidate for a seat in the academy. tried his powers in other departments of the drama, and composed a kind of romantic pastoral, entitled "Amour pour Amour;" and even farces and pieces of low humour, probably in order to prove that it was not for want of comic powers that his former pieces had so serious a cast. His fame is, however, entirely founded upon his grave comedies; for in the single tragedy which he attempted, he was He ་་་ judged to fall short of the strength and eleva tion requisite for that species of composition. This meritorious writer died of a pulmonary disorder in 1754, at the age of sixty-two, having displayed in his last moments the tranquil lity of a sage, conscious of the worthy use he had made of the faculties bestowed upon him. His theatrical works were published at Paris in five volumes, 12mo. 1763. D'Alembert Elages Acad. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-A. NIVELLE, GABRIEL NICHOLAS, a French priest in the eighteenth century, and esteemed writer in the Jansenist controversy, was born at Paris, about the year 1687. Feeling an early inclination for a life of retirement and study, he entered the seminary of St. Magloire, belonging to the congregation of the Oratory, where he continued till that community was dispersed in 1723. Afterwards he was nominated prior commendatory of St. Geréon, in the diocese of Nantes. In the year 1730, he was imprisoned for four months in the Bastile, on account of his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. He died in 1761, at the age of seventy-four. He was the author of "An Account of the Proceedings in the Faculty of Theology at Paris, on the Subject of the Constitution Unigenitus," in seven volumes, 12mo; "The Cry of the Faith," 1719, in three volumes, 12mo; and "The Constitution Unigenitus submitted to the Judgment of the Universal Church, or, a General Collection of the Acts of Appeal, &c." 1757, in four volumes, folio. This work is more voluminous than the "Roman History," and contains historical prefaces by the editor, observations which connect the separate parts so as to form one general whole, and analyses of some large works which it was not thought proper to admit into it in their entire state. king's library at Paris, there was a manuscript In the catalogue drawn up by him, of all the works written on the subject of Jansenism and the constitution Unigenitus, till the year 1738. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M. NIVERNOIS, LOUIS-JULES MANCINI, duke of, a statesman and polite writer, was born at Paris in 1716. After serving some time in the army, he was nominated embassador to Rome, and then to Berlin, where he made himself very acceptable to the great Frederic. In 1763 he was entrusted with the important negotiation of the definitive peace at London. On all these occasions he maintained the character of a prudent and enlightened minister, who united amenity of manners with the dignity of his station. After his return to Paris he devoted himself entirely to letters, and made himself advantageously known by several ingenious publications in prose and verse, which gave him admission to the French Academy, and that of Inscriptions. In his prose works he displayed a spirit of philosophy, and the principles of good taste and sound criticism. gance, and ingenuity; and his lighter pieces His verses are distinguished for facility, elealmost rival those of Voltaire in ease and vivacity. His most considerable performar.ce was a collection of "Fables," many of which are equal to those of La Motte, which they resemble in general character. This amiable nobleman lived to be a sufferer from the revolution, and was committed to prison in the tyrannical reign of Robespierre. He recovered his liberty on the fall of that monster, and died in 1798, at the age of eighty-two. His works were published collectively in eight volumes, octavo, 1796. Nouv. Dist. Hist.-A. the sixteenth century, was born in 1498, in NIZZOLI, MARIO, an elegant scholar of Of his education nothing is known; but it apor near Brescello in the duchy of Modena: with the count Gianfrancesco Gambara of pears that about 1522 he was invited to reside Brescia, a munificent patron of letters. To this nobleman Nizzoli acknowledges the highest obligations for supporting him by his liberality, and favouring his literary studies; and their connexion appears to have lasted nearly twenty nianus" was undertaken at the instance of this years. His work entitled "Thesaurus Ciceropatron, and printed for the first time in his house, in 1535. Nizzoli was for sometime private tutor to the marquis di Soragna, and was next profeswas in this situation during his angry controversor of eloquence in the university of Parma. He sy with Majoragio (see his article) concerning the merits of Cicero, and he there wrote his work "De veris Principiis et vera ratione Philosomoved in 1562 to Sabionetta, where prince phandi," published in 1553. From Parma he reVespasiano Gonzaga had founded a new university. To this institution he was appointed director and professor, by a patent which speaks very honourably of his learning and morals. At its opening, Nizzoli delivered a lowing year. How long he resided at SabionetLatin oration, which was printed in the folta, or where he spent the remainder of his life, does not appear. In an inscription to hi |
