Nerva

• a Roman family name of the Licinii, Cocceii, and Silii. So M. Cocceius Nerva, the Roman emperor.—Hence,
• II Nervĭus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to the emperor Nerva, Nervian: miles, of the Nervian legion, Claud. B. Gild. 421.

one of the consules auffecti in the reign of Trajan, A. D. 100. (Fasti; Plin. Ep. 2.12.)

1. M. Cocceius Nerva, was consul with L. Gellius Poplicola, B. C. 36. (D. C. 48.54.) He is probably the Cocceius who brought about the reconciliation between M. Antonius and Caesar Octavianus,B. C. 40, though this Cocceius is called Lucius by Appian (App. BC 5.60, &c.); and also the Cocceius mentioned by Horace (Sat. 1.5. 28, &c.). He is sometimes considered to be the grandfather of the emperor Nerva, and consequently the same person who died in the time of Tiberius, A. D. 33, which is not possible.

2. M. Cocceius Nerva, who died A. D. 33, was probably the son of the consul of B. C. 36: he was the grandfather of the emperor Nerva. This Nerva was consul with C. Vibius Rufinus, A. D. 22: Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.58) says that he had been consul. He was one of the intimate friends of Tiberius Caesar, who gave him the superintendence of the aqueducts of Rome (Frontinus, De Aquaeduct. ii.). Nerva accompanied Tiberius in his retirement from Rome A. D. 26. In the year A. D. 33, he resolutely starved himself to death, notwithstanding the intreaties of Tiberius, whose constant companion he was. Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 6.26) and Dio Cassius (58.21) give different reasons for this resolution of Nerva, but we may infer from both of them that Nerva was tired of his master. Tacitus says, that he was profoundly skilled in the law. He is often mentioned in the Digest (43. tit. 8. s. 2; 16. tit. 3. s. 32), and he wrote several legal works, but the title of no one of them is mentioned.

3. M. Cocceius Nerva, was the son of the jurist. He must have been a precocious youth, if we rightly understand Ulpian (Dig. 3. tit. i. s. l), when he says that he gave response (publice de jure responsitasse) at the age of seventeen or a little more. He is probably the Cocceius Nerva mentioned by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 15.72) as Praetor Designatus. He wrote a work De Usucapionibus (Dig. 41. tit. 2. s. 47) as Papinian states; and he is often cited in the Digest under the name of Nerva Filius. Gaius (Instil. 2.195, 3.133) cites Nerva, without saying whether he means the father or the son. [G.L]

Roman emperor, A. D. 96-98, was born at Narnia, in Umbria (Aur. Vict. Epit. 12), as some interpret the words of Victor, or rather his family was from Narnia. His father was probably the jurist, No. 3. The time of his birth was A. D. 32, inasmuch as he died in January, A. D. 98, at the age of nearly sixty-six (D. C. 68.4). He was consul with Vespasian, A. D. 71, and with Domitian, A. D. 90. Tillemont supposes him to be the Nerva mentioned by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 15.72), but this Nerva is, perhaps, the father of the emperor.

Nerva was probably at Rome when Domitian was assassinated, and privy to the conspiracy, though Aurelius Victor (de Caes. 12) seems to intend to say that he was in Gaul, which is very improbable. His life was saved from the cruelty of Domitian by the emperor's superstition, who believed an astrologer's prediction that Nerva would soon die a natural death (D. C. 67.15). On the assassination of Domitian, in September, A. D. 96, Nerva was declared emperor at Rome by the people and the soldiers, and his administration at once restored tranquillity to the state. He stopped proceedings against those who, under the system of his predecessor, had been accused of treason (majestas), and allowed many exiled persons to return to Rome. The class of informers were suppressed by penalties (Plin. Pagyr.y 100.35); some were put to death, among whom was the philosopher Sura; and, conformably to the old law, Nerva declared that slaves and freedmen should never be examined as witnesses against their masters or patrons when accused of a crime (D. C. 67.1). These measures were necessary to restore order and confidence after the suspicious and cruel administration of Domitian. But there was weakness in the character of Nerva, as appears from the following anecdote. He was entertaining Junius Mauricus and Fabius Veiento at table. Veiento had played the part of an accuser (delator) under Domitian. The conversation turned on Catullus Messallinus, who was then dead, but had been an infamous informer under Domitian. " What would this Catullus be doing," said Nerva, "if he were alive now;" to which Mauricus bluntly replied, "he would be supping with us" (Aur. Vict. Epit. 12).

The public events of his short reign were few and unimportant; and it is chiefly his measures of internal administration of which there are any records. Nerva attempted to relieve the poverty of many of the citizens by buying land and distributing it among them, one of the remedies for distress which the Romans had long tried, and with little advantage. The practice of occasionally distributing money among the poor citizens, and allowances of grain, still continued under Nerva, one of the parts of Roman administration which continually kept alive the misery for which it supplied temporary relief. He also diminished the expences of the state by stopping many of the public shows and festivals. Many enactments, by which we must understand Senatus consulta, were passed in his time, among which the prohibition against making eunuchs is worthy of notice but Domitian had already made the same regulation in the beginning of his reign (D. C. 67.2), whence we must conclude that the law had either been repealed or required some stricter penalties to enforce it.

In the second year of his reign, Nerva was consul, for the third time, with L. Verginius Rufus, also for the third time consul. Rufus had been proclaimed emperor by the soldiers in the time of Nero, A. D. 68, but had refused the dangerous honour. The emperor made no difficulty about associating Rufus with himself in the consulship, but Rufus was a very old man, and soon died. Calpurnius Crassus, a descendant of the Crassi of the republic, with others, conspired against the emperor, but the plot was discovered, and Nerva rebuked the conspirators by putting into their hands at a show of gladiators, the swords with which the men were going to fight, and asking the conspirators, in the usual way, if they were sharp enough. This anecdote, if true, shows that the exhibitions of gladiators were in use under Nerva. The text of Diou does not state what was the punishment of Crassus, but Victor (Epit. 12) says that Crassus was relegated with his wife to Tarentum, and that the senate blamed the emperor for his leniency; but Nerva had sworn at the commencement of his reign that he would put no senator to death, and he kept his word.

The feebleness of the emperor was shown by a mutiny of the Praetorian soldiers, who were either urged on by their Praefectus, Aelianus Casperius, or had bribed him to support them. The soldiers demanded the punishment of the assassins of Domitian, which the emperor refused. Though his body was feeble, his will was strong, and he offered them his own neck, and declared his readiness to die. However, it appears that the soldiers effected their purpose, and Nerva was obliged to put Petronius Secundus and Parthenius to death, or to permit them to be massacred by the soldiers (Plin. Panegyr. 100.6; Aur. Vict. Epit. 12; D. C. 58.3). Casperius, it is said, carried his insolence so far as to compel the emperor to thank the soldiers for what they had done.

Nerva felt his weakness, but he showed his noble character and his good sense by appointing as his successor a man who possessed both vigour and ability to direct public affairs. He adopted as his son and successor, without any regard to his own kin, M. Ulpius Trajanus, who was then at the head of an army in Germany, and probably on the Lower Rhine. It was about this time that news arrived of a victory in Pannonia, which is commemorated by a medal, and it was apparently on this occasion that Nerva assumed the title of Germlanicus. He conferred on Trajan the title of Caesar and Germanicus, and the tribunitian power. Trajan was thus associated with Nerva in the government, and tranquillity was restored at Rome. In the year A. D. 98, Nerva and Trajan were consuls. The emperor died suddenly on the 27th of January, in the sixty-third year of his age, according to Victor; but according to Dion, at the age of sixty-five years, ten months and ten days. Eutropius incorrectly states that he was seventyone. Victor records an eclipse of the sun on the day of Nerva's death, but the eclipse happened on the 21st of March, A. D. 98.

The body of Nerva was carried to the pile on the shoulders of the senators, as that of Augustus had been, and his remains were placed in the sepulchre of Augustus. Nerva received the honour of deification. (The authorities for the reign of Nerva are contained in Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. ii., who has made some use of the doubtful authority of the Life of Apollonius by Philostratus ; Dio Cass. lib. lxviii. with the notes of Reimarus; Aurelius Victor. ed. Arntzenius; and C. Plinius, Panegyricus, ed. Schaefer.)

[G.L]

1. C. Licinius Nerva, a son of C. Licinius Nerva, of whom nothing is known. Nerva the son was one of the legati who, in B. C. 168, brought the news to Rome of the defeat of the Illyrian army, and the capture of Gentius, and the conquest of Illyricum. In B. C. 167, he was one of the six praetors, with the province of Hispania Ulterior. Drumann concludes that he did not go to his province, because at the close of B. C. 167 he was one of the commissioners appointed to carry back the Thracian hostages, which reason is not quite conclusive. (Liv. 45.3, 16, 42.)

2. A. Licinius Nerva is called the brother of Caius by Drumann, which is possible, but no proof is alleged. He was a tribunus plebis, B. C. 178, and he proposed that the consul, A. Manlius Vulso, should not hold his command among the Istri beyond a certain day, the object of the tribune being to bring Manlius to trial for misconducting the war. (Liv. 41.10.) In B. C. 171 Nerva was one of three commissioners sent to Crete to get archers for the army of the consul P. Licinius Crassus, and in B. C. 169 he was sent with others into Macedonia to examine and report on the state of the Roman anny there, and the resources of king Perseus. In B. C. 166, he was a praetor, with one of the Hispaniae as his province. (Liv. 42.35, 44.18, 45.44.)

3. A. Licinius Nerva, probably the son of the praetor of B. C. 166. According to Drumann he was praetor in B. C. 143, and in B. C. 142 governor of Macedonia, when his quaestor, L. Tremellius, defeated a Pseudoperseus, or a Pseudophilippus, for there seems some uncertainty about the name, and a body of 16,000 men in arms. Nerva received on this occasion the title of imperator. (Liv. Epit. 53; Eutrop. 4.15.)

4. C. Licinius Nerva. His precise relationship to the preceding is unknown. He is mentioned by Cicero (Cic. Brut. 34), and contrasted with L. Bestia, whence Meyer concludes that he may have been Bestia's colleague in the tribuneship. Cicero calls him a bad man, but not without some eloquence.

5. Licinius Nerva, is known only from the coins as a quaestor of Decimus Brutus, in the war before Mutina. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iv. p. 19, No. 85.)

6. P. Licinius Nerva, in B. C. 103, was propraetor in Sicily at the time when the second Servile War broke out. The senate had made a decree that no free person of those nations which had alliance and friendship with Rome should be enslaved, and it was alleged that the Publicani had seized and sold many as slaves, probably because they did not pay the taxes. Nerva published an edict that all persons in Sicily who were entitled to the benefit of the decree should come to Syracuse to make out their case. Above eight hundred persons thus recovered their freedom, but those who held persons in slavery, fearing that the matter would go further, prevailed on Nerva not to allow any further claims of freedom to be made, to which he assented, and a rising of the slaves was the consequence. This war lasted four years, and was ended by the proconsul Aquillius. The history of this rising is told circumstantially by Diodorus (xxxvi.; Excerpts by Photius, Phot. Bibl. 244). The praetor by treachery gained some advantage over the slaves, and the Roman troops after this success retired to their quarters. But the disturbance soon broke out, and it assumed the form of a regular war under Athenion. L. Licinius Lucullus, the father of Lucullus, the vanquisher of Mithridates, was sent in B. C. 102 to succeed Nerva in the government of Sicily.

7. A. Licinius Nerva Silianus, was adopted by some Licinius Nerva, as the name Silianus shows, out of the Silia gens. He was the son of P. Silius (Vell. 2.116), a distinguished commander under Augustus, and consul, B. C. 20. with M. Appuleius. Silianus was consul, A. D. 7, but he is called Licinius Silanus in the text of Dio Cassius (55.30). P. Silius, the consul of B. C. 20, appears in the Fasti Consulares as P. Silius Nerva, whence it appears that the cognomen Nerva belonged to the Silii. [Silius.]

The authorities for the Licinii Nervae are collected by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iv. p. 196, &c. [G.L]

[Nerva, Licinius, No. 7, and Silius.]

[Trajanus.]

NERVA (Νερούα, Ptol. 2.6.7), a small river in the N. of Hispania Tarraconensis, in the territory of the Autrigones; according to Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 300), the modern Ordunna, near Bilbao; though by other writers it is variously identified with the Blanes and the Nervion.

(1) Marcus, the grandfather of the emperor Nerva. He was consul in A.D. 22, and starved himself to death in the year 33. He was a famous lawyer, and is often cited in the Digest. He also had charge of the public works under Tiberius, and originated the tunnel (Grotta di Posilipo) near Naples.

(2) Marcus, the son of the preceding and father of the emperor. He won distinction as a jurist, and is quoted in Gaius and the Digest under the name of Filius. Nerva

(3) Marcus Coccēius. The thirteenth Roman emperor, was born at Narnia, in Umbria, A.D. 27 according to Eutropius (viii. 1), or A.D. 32 according to Dio Cassius (lxviii. 4). His family originally came from Crete; but several of his ancestors rose to the highest honours of the Roman State. His grandfather, Cocceius Nerva, who was consul A.D. 22, and a great favourite of the emperor Tiberius, was one of the most celebrated jurists of his age. Nerva is first mentioned in history as a favourite of Nero, who bestowed upon him triumphal honours, A.D. 66, when he was praetor elect. The poetry of Nerva , which is mentioned with praise by Pliny and Martial, appears to have recommended him to Nero; and he was employed in offices of trust and honour during the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, though he incurred the suspicion of Domitian, who banished him to Tarentum. On the assassination of Domitian, A.D. 96, Nerva succeeded to the sovereign power, through the influence of Petronius Secundus, commander of the praetorian cohorts, and of Parthenius, the chamberlain of the palace.

The mild and equitable administration of Nerva is acknowledged and praised by all ancient writers, and forms a striking contrast to the bloody reign of his predecessor. He discouraged informers, recalled the exiles from banishment, relieved the people from some oppressive taxes, and tolerated the Christians. Many instances of his liberality and clemency are recorded by the younger Pliny ; he allowed no senator to be put to death during his reign; and he practised the greatest economy, in order to relieve the wants of the poorer citizens. But his impartial administration of justice met with little favour from the Praetorian Guard, which had been allowed by Domitian to indulge in excesses of every kind. Enraged at the loss of their benefactor and favourite, they compelled Nerva to deliver into their hands Parthenius and their own commander Petronius, both of whom they put to death. The excesses of his guards convinced Nerva that the government of the Roman Empire required greater energy both of body and mind than he possessed, and he accordingly adopted Trajan as his successor, and associated him with himself in the sovereignty. Nerva died A.D. 98, after a reign of sixteen months and nine days. His life is sketched by Suetonius.