law was probably as short-lived in its effects as preceding ones had been, but a more lasting reform was the maintenance at the public cost of the children of poor parents in the towns of Italy (Aur. Vict. Ep. 24), the provision being presumably secured by a yearly charge on state and municipal lands. Private individuals were also encouraged to follow the imperial example. In the hands of Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines, Nerva’s example bore fruit in the institution of the alimentationes, the most genuinely charitable institution of the pagan world. These measures Nerva supplemented by others which aimed at lightening the financial burdens on the declining industry of Italy. The cost of maintaining the imperial postal system (vehiculatio) was transferred to the fiscus; from the same source apparently money was found for repairing the public roads and aqueducts; and lastly, the lucrative but unpopular tax of 5% on all legacies or inheritances (vicesima hereditatum), was so readjusted as to remove the grosser abuses connected with it (Pliny, Paneg. 37). At the same time Nerva did his best to reduce the overgrown expenditure of the state (Pliny, Ep. ii. 1). A commission was appointed to consider the best modes of retrenchment, and the outlay on shows and games was cut down to the lowest possible point. Nerva seems nevertheless to have soon wearied of the uncongenial task of governing, and his anxiety to be rid of it was quickened by the discovery that not even his blameless life and mild rule protected him against intrigue and disaffection. Early, apparently, in 97 he detected a conspiracy against his life headed by L. (or C.) Calpurnius Crassus, but he contented himself with a hint to the conspirators that their designs were known, and with banishing Crassus to Tarentum. This ill-judged lenity provoked a few months later an intolerable insult to his dignity. The praetorian guards had keenly resented the murder of their patron Domitian, and now, at the instigation of one of their two prefects, Casperius Aelianus, whom Nerva had retained in office, they imperiously demanded the execution of Domitian’s murderers, the chamberlain Parthenius and Petronius Secundus, Aelianus’s colleague. Nerva vainly strove to save, even at the risk of his own life, the men who had raised him to power, but the soldiers brutally murdered the unfortunate men, and forced him to propose a vote of thanks for the deed (Dio Cass. Epit. lxviii. 4; Aur. Vict. Ep. 24) This humiliation convinced Nerva of the necessity of placing the government in stronger hands than his own. Following the precedent set by Augustus, Galba and Vespasian, he resolved to adopt as his colleague and destined successor, M. Ulpius Trajanus, a distinguished soldier, at the time in command of the legions on the Rhine. In October 97, in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, Trajan was formally adopted as his son and declared his colleague in the government of the empire (Pliny, Paneg. 8). For three months Nerva ruled jointly with Trajan (Aur. Vict. Ep. 24); but on the 25th (according to others, the 27th) of January 98 he died somewhat suddenly. He was buried in the sepulchre of Augustus, and divine honours were paid him by his successor. The verdict of history upon his reign is best expressed in his own words—“I have done nothing which should prevent me from laying down my power, and living in safety as a private man.” The memory of Nerva is still preserved by the ruined temple in the Via Alessandrina (il Colonacce) which marks the site of the Forum begun by Domitian, but which Nerva completed and dedicated (Suet. Dom. 5; Aur. Vict. 12).
Authorities.—Dio Cass. lxviii. 1-4; Aurelius Victor 12, and Epit. 24; Zonaras xi. 20; compare also Pliny, Epistolae and Panegyricus; Tillemont, Histoire des empereurs romains, ii.; C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. 63; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. pt. 2 (1883), p. 538; J. Asbach, Römisches Kaiserthum und Verfassung bis auf Trajan (Cologne, 1896); A. Stein in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie (s.v. Cocceius, 16); J. B. Bury, The Student’s Roman Empire, ch. 23 (1893). (H. F. P.)
NERVAL, GÉRARD DE (1808–1855), the adopted name of
Gérard Labrunie, French man of letters, born in Paris on the
22nd of May 1808. His father was an army doctor, and the
child was left with an uncle in the country, while Mme Labrunie
accompanied her husband in his campaigns. She died in Silesia.
In 1811 his father returned, and beside Greek and Latin taught
the boy modern languages and the elements of Arabic and
Persian. Gérard found his favourite reading in old books on
mysticism and the occult sciences. He distinguished himself
by his successes at the Collège Charlemagne, however, and his
first work, La France guerrière, élégies nationales, was published
while he was still a student. In 1828 he published a translation
of Goethe’s Faust, the choruses of which were afterwards used
by Berlioz for his legend-symphony, The Damnation of Faust.
A number of poetical pieces and three comedies combined to
acquire for him, at the age of twenty-one, a considerable literary
reputation, and led to his being associated with Théophile
Gautier in the preparation of the dramatic feuilleton for the
Presse. He conceived a violent passion for the actress Jennie
Colon, in whom he thought he recognized a certain Adrienne,
who had fired his childish imagination. Her marriage and her
death in 1842 were blows from which his nervous temperament
never really recovered. He travelled in Germany with Alexandre
Dumas, and alone in various parts of Europe, leading a very
irregular and eccentric life. In 1843 he visited Constantinople
and Syria, where, among other adventures, he nearly married
the daughter of a Druse sheikh. He contributed accounts of his
travels to the Revue des Deux Mondes and other periodicals.
After his return to Paris in 1844 he resumed for a short time his
feuilleton for the Presse, but his eccentricities increased and he
committed suicide by hanging, on the 25th of January 1855.
The literary style of Gérard is simple and unaffected, and he has
a peculiar faculty of giving to his imaginative creations an air of
naturalness and reality. In a series of novelettes, afterwards
published under the name of Les Illuminés, on les précurseurs
du socialisme (1852), containing studies on Rétif de la Bretonne,
Cagliostro and others, he gave a sort of analysis of the feelings
which followed his third attack of insanity. Among his other
works the principal are Les Filles du feu (1854), which contains
his masterpiece, the semi-autobiographical romance of Sylvie;
Scènes de la vie orientale (1848–1850); Contes et facéties (1852);
La Bohême galante (1856); and L'Alchimiste, a drama in five
acts, the joint composition of Gérard and Alexandre Dumas.
His Poésies complètes were published in 1877.
There are many accounts of Gérard de Nerval’s unhappy life. Among them may be mentioned notices by his friend Théophile Gautier and by Arsène Houssaye, prefixed to the posthumous Le Rêve et la vie (1855); Maurice Tourneux’s sketch in his Âge du romantisme (1887): and a sympathetic study of temperament in the Névrosés (1898) of Mme Arvède Barine. See also G. Ferrières, Gérard de Nerval (1906).
NERVE (Lat. nervus, Gr. νεῦρον, a bowstring), originally a sinew
or tendon (and still so used in the phrase “to strain every nerve”),
but now a term practically confined to the fibres of the nervous
system in anatomy, though consequentially employed as a general
psychical term in the sense of courage or firmness, and sometimes
(but more usually “nervousness”) in the opposite sense. In
the present article the anatomy of the nerves is dealt with; see
also Nervous System, Muscle and Nerve, Neuropathology, &c.
I. Cranial
The cranial nerves are those which rise directly from the brain, and for the most part are concerned with the supply of the head. With one exception they all contain medullated fibres (see Nervous System). Twelve pairs of these nerves are recognized, and they are spoken of as often by their numbers as by their names. The following is a list:—
(1) Olfactory; (2) Optic; (3) Oculo-motor or Motor oculi; (4) Trochlearis or Patheticus; (5) Trigeminal or Trifacial; (6) Abducens; (7) Facial; (8) Auditory; (9) Glosso-pharyngeal; (10) Vagus or Pneumogastric; (11) Spinal accessory; (12) Hypoglossal.
The first, or olfactory nerve, consists of the olfactory bulb and tract, which are a modified lobe of the brain and lie beneath the sulcus rectus on the frontal lobe of the brain (see fig. 1). At its posterior end the tract divides to become continuous with the two extremities of the limbic lobe (see Brain), while at its anterior end is the bulb from which some twenty small non-medullated nerves pass through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid to supply the sensory organs in the olfactory mucous membrane (see Olfactory Organ).
