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 timely and politic intervention. Neri continued in the government of the Oratory until his death, which took place on the 26th of May 1595 at Rome. He was succeeded by Baronius. There are many anecdotes told of him which attest his possession of a playful humour, united with shrewd mother-wit. He considered a cheerful temper to be more Christian than a melancholy one, and carried this spirit into his whole life. This is the true secret of his popularity and of his place in the folk-lore of the Roman poor. Many miracles were attributed to him alive and dead, and it is said that when his body was dissected it was found that two of his ribs had been broken, an event attributed to the expansion of his heart while fervently praying in the catacombs about the year 1545. This phenomenon is in the same category as the stigmata of St Francis of Assisi. Neri was beatified by Paul V. in 1600, and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622.

 NERO (37–68), Roman emperor 54–68, was born at Antium on the 15th of December 37. He was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the younger, and his name was originally L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. His father died when Nero was scarcely three years old. In the previous year (39) his mother had been banished by order of her brother Caligula (Gaius) on a charge of treasonable conspiracy, and Nero, thus early deprived of both parents, found shelter in the house of his aunt Domitia, where two slaves, a barber and a dancer, began his training. The emperor Claudius recalled Agrippina, who spent the next thirteen years in the determined struggle to win for Nero the throne which had been predicted for him. Her first decisive success was gained in 48 by the disgrace and execution of (q.v.), wife of Claudius. In 49 followed her own marriage with Claudius, and her recognition as his consort in the government. The Roman populace already looked with favour on Nero, as the grandson of Germanicus, but in 50 his claims obtained formal recognition from Claudius himself, who adopted him under the title of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. Agrippina's next step was to provide a suitable training for her son. The scholar L. Annaeus Seneca was recalled from exile and appointed his tutor. On the 15th of December 51 Nero completed his fourteenth year, and Agrippina, in view of Claudius’s failing health, determined to delay no longer his adoption of the toga virilis. The occasion was celebrated in a manner which seemed to place Nero’s prospects of succession beyond doubt. He was introduced to the senate by Claudius himself. The proconsular imperium and the title of princeps juventutis were conferred upon him. He was specially admitted as an extraordinary member of the great priestly colleges; his name was included by the Arval Brethren in their prayers for the safety of the emperor and his house; at the games in the circus his appearance in triumphal dress contrasted significantly with the simple toga praetexta worn by Britannicus. During the next two years Agrippina followed this up with energy. Britannicus’s leading partisans were banished or put to death, and the all-important command of the praetorian guard was transferred to Afranius Burrus, a Gaul by birth, who had been the trusted agent first of Livia and then of Tiberius and Claudius. Nero himself was put prominently forward. The petitions addressed to the senate by the town of Bononia and by the communities of Rhodes and Ilium were gracefully supported by him in Latin and Greek speeches, and during Claudius’s absence in 52 at the Latin festival it was Nero who, as praefect of the city, administered justice in the forum. Early in 53 his marriage with 