Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/555

Rh N I M N I N 511 Nemausus, the ancient Nimes, derived its name from the sacred wood in which the Volcce Arecomici (who of their own accord sur rendered to the Romans in 121 B.C.) were wont to hold their assemblies. Constituted a colony of veterans by Augustus, and endowed with numerous privileges, it built a temple and struck a medal in honour of its founder. The medal, which afterwards famished the type for the coat of arms granted to the town by Francis I., bears on one side the heads of Csesar Augustus and Vipsanius Agrippa (the former crowned with laurel), while on the other there is a crocodile chained to a palm-tree, with the legend COL. NEM. It was Agrippa who built the public baths at Nimes, the temple of Diana, and the aqueduct of the Pont du Gard. _ The city-walls, erected by Augustus, were nearly 4 miles in circuit, 30 feet high, and 10 feet broad, flanked by ninety towers, and pierced by ten gates. Hadrian on his way back from Britain erected at Nimes two memorials of his benefactress Plotina. In the very height of its prosperity the city was ravaged by the Vandals ; the Visigoths followed, and turned the amphitheatre into a stronghold, which at a later date was set on fire along with the gates of the city when Charles Martel drove out the Saracens. Nimes became a republic under the protection of Pippin the Short ; and in 1185 it passed to the counts of Toulouse, who restored its prosperity and enclosed it with ramparts whose enceinte, less extensive than that of Augustus, may still be traced in the boulevards of the present day. The city took part in the crusade against the Albigenses in 1207. Under Louis VIII. it received a royal garrison into its amphitheatre ; under Louis XI. it was captured by the duke of Burgundy, and in 1420 was recovered by the dauphin (Charles VII. ). On a visit to Nimes Francis I. enriched it with a university and a school of arts. By 1558 about three-fourths of the inhabitants had become Protestant, and the city suffered greatly during the religious wars. From the accession of Henry IV. till the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) the Protestant community devoted itself to active industry ; but after that disastrous event great numbers went into exile or joined the Camisards. Louis XIV. built a fortress (1687) to keep in check the disturbances caused by the rival religious parties. Nimes passed unhurt through the storms of the Revolution ; but in 1815 Trestaillon and his bandit followers pillaged and burned and plundered and massacred the Bonapartists and Protestants. Since then the city has remained divided into two strongly-marked factious Catholics and Protestants ; happily, however, there has been no repetition of such scenes. Domitius Afer (Quintilian s master), Jacques Saurin the Protestant divine, Nicot the introducer of tobacco into France, Seguier the archselogist, Guizot, and Reboul (the Provencal poet whose statue adorns the Promenade de la Fontaine) are among the celebrated natives of Nimes. NIMROD (NefipwS, LXX.), apart from the mere mention of his name in Micah v. 5 (A.V., v. 6), occurs only once in Scripture, namely, in Gen. x. 8-12 (1 Chron. i. 10), where, in a Jehovistic portion of the genealogy of the nations there given, we are told that &quot; Gush begat Nimrod, who was the first mighty one in the earth (he was a mighty hunter before Jehovah, wherefore it is said A mighty hunter before Jehovah even as Nimrod), and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Asshur 1 and build ed Nineveh,&quot; &c. Just as Enos was the first to call upon the name of Jehovah, and Noah the first to plant vines, so is Nimrod the first mighty ruler in the earth, and as such at the same time a mighty hunter before Jehovah, after the manner of the Oriental sovereigns of old. By the Hebrews the Assyrio-Baby- lonian empire was at all periods regarded as the prototype of the worldly power ; and it is of this kingdom that Nimrod here figures as the founder not in its prehistorical but in its historical form as actually subsisting at the time of the writer. This is apparent, not only from the general character of the genealogical table, but also from the enumeration of the cities in the land of Shinar and Asshur. As founder of the kingdom, Nimrod represents both kingdom and people ; the genealogy knows no distinction between the hero and the nation, the latter is the family of the former. When, therefore, Nimrod is said to be descended from Gush, the mighty nation of Asshur and Babel (which in Gen. x. 22 is regarded as belonging to 1 Not &quot; out of that land went forth Asshur&quot;; for the &quot;beginning&quot; of his kingdom demands a continuation, and Asshur is called Nimrod s land in Micah v. 5. Shem) is also by the Jehovist assigned to Gush. Shem or him seems to have a very narrow meaning, expressing merely the contrast between the Hebrew lords and their ?anaanite subjects ; Gush, on the other hand (like IvSoi with the Greeks), is a very comprehensive and vague word, which does not readily admit of clear geographical or thnological definition, and therefore also cannot be wrought into contrast with Shem if Shem be used in its modern application as indicating race. A god spoken of as &quot; Marri with his hounds &quot; was still worshipped in Harran after the introduction of Christianity (Assem., BibL Or., i. 327) ; that this Marri is akin to Nimrod is suggested on the one hand by his hounds and on the other by the etymology of the two names derived from the synonymous roots mry and mrd. Nimrod looks like a Syriac imperfect of the root mrd, in which case it would seem to follow that the legend arose among the Syrians, the next neighbours of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and from them had passed over to the Hebrews. Then, further, Nimrod may be a modification of the name Merodach, the Babylonian chief god, the final syllable -acli being dropped. 2 To the later Jews Babylon was the complete embodiment of the enmity of the heathen world against the kingdom of God, and the idea they formed of Nimrod was influenced by this view. The arrogance of his character, which seemed to be implied in his very name, was conceived of as defiance of God, and he became a heaven-storming Titan. As such he built the tower of Babel, and as such was he identified with the giant in bonds in the constellation of Orion. Jewish legend made choice of Abraham to be his antithesis, the representative of God s kingdom over against the heathen autocrat. Nimrod cast the bold confessor of the true God into the fire of the Chaldaeans (Ur Kasdim), whence, according to Gen. xv. 7, Isa. xxix. 22, Jehovah delivered him. 3 The Jewish material was afterwards treated by Mohammed and the Arabian theologians, who mixed it up with other elements. Compare Philo, De Gigantibus, sec. 15 (Mang., p. 272); Jos., Ant., i. 4, 2; 6, 2; Chron. Pasch.. p. 36 (Cedren., p. 14); Jerome and Jonathan on Gen. xi. 28 ; Tabari, i. pp. 319-325. (J. WE.) NINEVEH (Hebrew ^Wl, in classical authors NtVos, Ninus; LXX., Nivew; Jerome, Niniue), the famous capital of the Assyrian empire, called Ninua or Nina on the monuments. Though the city appears to have been entirely destroyed in the fall of the empire 4 the name of Nineveh (Syriac, Nmwe ; Arabic, Ninawd, Nunawa) con tinued, even in the Middle Ages, to be applied to a site opposite Mosul on the east bank of the Tigris, where gigantic tells or artificial mounds, and the traces of an ancient city wall, bore evident witness of fallen greatness. 5 The walls enclose an irregular trapezium, stretching in length about 1 miles along the Tigris, which protected the city on the west. 6 The greatest breadth is over a mile. The most elaborate defences, consisting of outworks and moats that can still be traced, were on the southern half of the east side, for the deep sluggish Khausar, which 2 Compare the converse &amp;lt;f&amp;gt;aex, LXX., in 1 Cbron. v. 26 for 7Q. 3 Beer, Leben Abrahams (1859), p. 1 sq. Compare Dan. iii., whence the confusion of Nimrod with Nebuchadnezzar by the Arabs. 4 It is generally agreed, and the description hardly leaves a doubt, that the ruins of Mespila and Larissa described by Xenophon, Anab., iii. 4, 7 sq., are Kuyunjik and Nimrud respectively. In this case we can be certain that there was no inhabited city on the spot at the time of the march of the Greeks with Cyras. Comp. Strabo xvi. p. 245. 5 The references collected by Tuch, De Nino Urbe, Leipsic, 1845, are copious, but might easily be added to. Ibn Jubair, p. 237 sq., who as usual is pillaged by Ibn Batuta, ii. 137, gives a good descrip tion of the ruins and of the great shrine of Jonah as they were in the 12th century. The name Ninawa was not appropriated to the ruins, but was applied to the Rustak (fields and hamlets) that stood on the site (Beladhori, p. 331; Ibn Haukal, p. 145; Yakut, ii. 694). 6 A change in the bed of the stream has left a space between the wall and the present channel of the Tigris.