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 Russians distracted their attention effectively. Nicephorus was less successful in his western wars. After renouncing his tribute to the Fatimite caliphs, he sent an expedition to Sicily under Nicetas (964–65), but was forced by defeats on land and sea to evacuate that island completely. In 967 he made peace with the Saracens of Kairawan and turned to defend himself against their common enemy, Otto I. of Germany, who had attacked the Byzantine possessions in Italy; but after some initial successes his generals were defeated and driven back upon the southern coast. Owing to the care which he lavished upon the proper maintenance of the army, Nicephorus was compelled to exercise rigid economy in other departments. He retrenched the court largesses and curtailed the immunities of the clergy, and although himself of an ascetic disposition forbade the foundation of new monasteries. By his heavy imposts and the debasement of the coinage he forfeited his popularity with the rest of the community, and gave rise to riots. Last of all, he was forsaken by his wife, and, in consequence of a conspiracy which she headed with his nephew John Zimisces, was assassinated in his sleeping apartment. Nicephorus was the author of an extant treatise on military tactics which contains valuable information concerning the art of war in his time.

(Botaniates), emperor 1078–1081, belonged to a family which claimed descent from the Roman Fabii and rose to be commander of the troops in Asia. He revolted in 1078 from Michael VII., and with the connivance of the Turks marched upon Nicaea, where he assumed the purple. In face of another rebellious general, Nicephorus Bryennius, his election was ratified by the aristocracy and clergy. With the help of Alexius Comnenus he drove out of the field Bryennius and other rivals, but failed to clear the invading Turks out of Asia Minor. Nicephorus ultimately quarrelled with Alexius, who used his influence with the army to depose the emperor and banish him to a monastery. In the years of his reign he had entirely given himself over to debauchery.

NICEPHORUS CALLISTUS XANTHOPOULOS, of Constantinople, the last of the Greek ecclesiastical historians, flourished 1320–1330. His Historia Ecclesiastica, in eighteen books, brings the narrative down to 610; for the first four centuries the author is largely dependent on his predecessors, Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius, his additions showing very little critical faculty; for the later period his labours, based on documents now no longer extant, to which he had free access, though he used them also with small discrimination, are much more valuable. A table of contents of other five books, continuing the history to the death of Leo the Philosopher in 911, also exists, but whether the books were ever actually written is doubtful. Some modern scholars are of opinion that Nicephorus appropriated and passed off as his own the work of an unknown author of the 10th century. The plan of the work is good and, in spite of its fables and superstitious absurdities, contains important facts which would otherwise have been unknown. The history of the Latin Church receives little attention. Only one MS. of the history is known; it was stolen by a Turkish soldier from the library at Buda during the reign of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and taken to Constantinople, where it was bought by a Christian and eventually reached the imperial library at Vienna. Nicephorus was also the author of lists of the emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople, of a poem on the capture of Jerusalem, and of a synopsis of the Scriptures, all in iambics; and of commentaries on liturgical poems.

NICEPHORUS PATRIARCHA (c. 758–829), Byzantine historian and patriarch of Constantinople (806–815). His father Theodorus, one of the secretaries of the emperor Constantine Copronymus, had been scourged and banished for his zealous support of image-worship, and the son inherited the religious convictions of the father. He was secretary to the imperial commissaries at the council of Nicaea in 787, which witnessed the triumph of his opinions; but, feeling dissatisfied with court life, he retired into a convent. In 806 he was suddenly raised by the emperor Nicephorus I. to the patriarchate of Constantinople, and this office he held until 815, when he accepted deposition rather than assent to the iconoclastic edict promulgated by Leo the Armenian in the previous year. He retired to the cloister of St Theodore, which he himself had founded, and died there in 829. After his death he was included among the saints of the orthodox church.

NICHE (through Fr. niche from Ital. nicchia, nicchio, shell; possibly from Lat. mitulus, a sea-mussel; cf. “napkin” from mappa), in architecture a recess sunk in a wall, generally for the reception of a statue. The niche is sometimes terminated by a simple label, but more commonly by a canopy, and with a bracket or corbel for the figure, in which case it is often called a “tabernacle.”

NICHOL, JOHN (1833–1894), Scottish man of letters, son of the astronomer J. P. Nichol (1804–1859), was born on the 8th of September 1833, and educated at Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford, where he had a brilliant career. After taking his first-class in classics, he remained at Oxford as a coach. With Albert Venn Dicey, Thomas Hill Green, Swinburne and others, he formed the Old Mortality Society for discussions on literary matters. In 1862 he was made professor of English literature at Glasgow. He, had already made a reputation as an acute critic and a successful lecturer, and his influence at Glasgow was very marked. He visited the United States in 1865, and in 1882 he wrote the article on American literature for the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica—an article which is a good example of his pungent (sometimes unduly pungent) style. He left Glasgow for London in 1889, and died on the 11th of October 1894. Among his best works were his drama Hannibal (1873), The Death of Themistocles, and other Poems (1881), his Byron in the “English Men of Letters” series (1880), his Robert Burns (1882) and Carlyle (1892).

 NICHOLAS, ST, bishop of Myra, in Lycia, a saint honoured by the Greeks and the Latins on the 6th of December. His cult is as celebrated as his history is obscure. All the accounts that have come down to us are of a purely legendary character, and it is impossible to find any single incident confirmed historically. The main facts of his life are usually given as follows. He was bishop of Myra in the time of the emperor Diocletian, was persecuted, tortured for the faith, and kept in prison until the more tolerant reign of Constantine, and was present at the council of Nicaea. It should be observed that this last circumstance is ignored by all the historians, and that St Athanasius, who knew all the notable bishops of the period, never mentions Nicholas, bishop of Myra. The oldest known monument of the cult of St Nicholas seems to be the church of SS Priscus and Nicholas built at Constantinople by the emperor Justinian (see Procopius, De aedif. i. 6). In the West, the name of St Nicholas appears in the 9th century martyrologies, and churches dedicated to him are to be found at the beginning of the 11th century. It is more especially, however, from the time of the removal of his body to Bari, in Apulia, that his cult became popular. The inhabitants of Bari organized an expedition, seized his remains by means of a ruse, and transported them to Bari, where they were received in triumph on the 9th of May