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 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).

 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.

 NERVE (Lat. nervus, Gr. , 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, , , &c.

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 ). 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.