NĔŌCŎRI (νεωκόροι), signified originally temple-sweepers, but was
applied even in early times to priestly officers of high rank, who
had the supreme superintendence of temples and their treasures.
Under the Roman emperors the word was especially applied to those
cities in Asia, which erected temples to the Roman emperors, since
the whole city in every such case was regarded as the guardian of the
worship of the emperor. Accordingly we frequently find on the coins
of Ephesus, Smyrna, and other cities, the epithet Νεωκόρος, which
also occurs on the inscriptions of these cities.
NEPTŪNĀLĬA, a festival of Neptune, celebrated at Rome, of which very
little is known. The day on which it was held was probably the 23rd
of July. In the ancient calendaria this day is marked as _Nept. ludi
et feriae_, or _Nept. ludi_, from which we see that the festival was
celebrated with games.
NEXUM, was either the transfer of the ownership of a thing, or the
transfer of a thing to a creditor as a security; accordingly in
one sense Nexum included Mancipium [MANCIPIUM]; in another sense,
Mancipium and Nexum are opposed in the same way in which Sale and
Mortgage or Pledge are opposed. The formal part of both transactions
consisted in a transfer _per aes et libram_. The person who became
_nexus_ by the effect of a _nexum_ or _nexus_ (for this form of
the word also is used) was said _nexum inire_. The phrases _nexi
datio_, _nexi liberatio_, respectively express the contracting and
the release from the obligation. The Roman law as to the payment of
borrowed money was very strict. By a law of the Twelve Tables, if the
debtor admitted the debt, or had been condemned in the amount of the
debt by a judex, he had thirty days allowed him for payment. At the
expiration of this time, he was liable to be assigned over to the
creditor (_addictus_) by the sentence of the praetor. The creditor
was required to keep him for sixty days in chains, during which time
he publicly exposed the debtor on three nundinae, and proclaimed the
amount of his debt. If no person released the prisoner by paying the
debt, the creditor might sell him as a slave or put him to death.
If there were several creditors, the letter of the law allowed them
to cut the debtor in pieces, and to take their share of his body in
proportion to their debt. There is no instance of a creditor ever
having adopted this extreme mode of satisfying his debt. But the
creditor might treat the debtor, who was addictus, as a slave, and
compel him to work out his debt; and the treatment was often very
severe. The Lex Poetilia (B.C. 326) alleviated the condition of the
nexi. So far as we can understand its provisions, it set all the nexi
free, or made them _soluti_, and it enacted that for the future there
should be no nexum, and that no debtor should for the future be put
in chains.
NŌBILES, NŌBĬLĬTAS. In the early periods of the Roman state the
Patricians were the Nobles as opposed to the Plebs. In B.C. 366, the
plebeians obtained the right of being eligible to the consulship,
and finally they obtained access to all the curule magistracies.
Thus the two classes were put on the same footing as to political
capacity; but now a new order of nobility arose. The descendants of
plebeians who had filled curule magistracies, formed a class called
Nobiles or men “known,” who were so called by way of distinction
from “Ignobiles” or people who were not known. The Nobiles had no
legal privileges as such; but they were bound together by a common
distinction derived from a legal title and by a common interest;
and their common interest was to endeavour to confine the election
to all the high magistracies to the members of their body, to the
Nobilitas. Thus the descendants of those Plebeians who had won their
way to distinction combined to exclude other Plebeians from the
distinction which their own ancestors had transmitted to them. The
external distinction of the Nobiles was the Jus Imaginum, a right or
privilege which was apparently established on usage only, and not on
any positive enactments. These Imagines were figures with painted
masks of wax, made to resemble the person whom they represented; and
they were placed in the Atrium of the house, apparently in small
wooden receptacles or cases somewhat in the form of temples. The
Imagines were accompanied with the tituli or names of distinction
which the deceased had acquired; and the tituli were connected in
some way by lines or branches so as to exhibit the pedigree (stemma)
of the family. These Imagines were generally enclosed in their cases,
but they were opened on festival days and other great ceremonials,
and crowned with bay (laureatae): they also formed part of a solemn
funeral procession. It seems probable that the Roman Nobilitas, in
the strict sense of that term, and the Jus Imaginum, originated
with the admission of the Plebeians to the consulship B.C. 366. A
plebeian who first attained a Curule office was the founder of his
family’s Nobilitas (princeps nobilitatis; auctor generis). Such a
person could have no imagines of his ancestors; and he could have
none of his own, for such imagines of a man were not made till after
he was dead. Such a person then was not nobilis in the full sense of
the term, nor yet was he ignobilis. He was called by the Romans a
“novus homo” or a new man; and his status or condition was called
Novitas. The term novus homo was never applied to a Patrician. The
two most distinguished “novi homines” were C. Marius and M. Tullius
Cicero, both natives of an Italian municipium. The Patricians would
of course be jealous of the new nobility; but this new nobility once
formed would easily unite with the old aristocracy of Rome to keep
the political power in their hands, and to prevent more novi homines
from polluting this exclusive class. As early as the second Punic war
this new class, compounded of Patricians or original aristocrats,
and Nobiles or newly-engrafted aristocrats, was able to exclude novi
homines from the consulship. They maintained this power to the end
of the republican period, and the consulship continued almost in
the exclusive possession of the Nobilitas. The _Optimates_ were the
Nobilitas and the chief part of the Equites, a rich middle class,
and also all others whose support the Nobilitas and Equites could
command, in fact all who were opposed to change that might affect the
power of the Nobilitas and the interests of those whom the Nobilitas
allied with themselves. Optimates in this sense are opposed to
Plebs, to the mass of the people; and Optimates is a wider term than
Nobilitas, inasmuch as it would comprehend the Nobilitas and all who
adhered to them.
NŌMEN (ὄνομα), a name. The Greeks bore only one name, and it was
one of the especial rights of a father to choose the names for his
children, and to alter them if he pleased. It was customary to give
to the eldest son the name of the grandfather on his father’s side;
and children usually received their names on the tenth day after
their birth.--Originally every Roman citizen belonged to a gens, and
derived his name (_nomen_ or _nomen gentilicium_) from his gens,
which _nomen gentilicium_ generally terminated in _ius_. Besides
this, every Roman had a name, called _praenomen_, which preceded the
nomen gentilicium, and which was peculiar to him as an individual,
_e.g._ Caius, Lucius, Marcus, Cneius, Sextus, &c. This praenomen
was at a later time given to boys on the ninth day after their
birth, and to girls on the eighth day. This day was called _dies
lustricus_, _dies nominum_, or _nominalia_. The praenomen given to
a boy was in most cases that of the father, but sometimes that of
the grandfather or great-grandfather. These two names, a _praenomen_
and a _nomen gentilicium_, or simply _nomen_, were indispensable
to a Roman, and they were at the same time sufficient to designate
him; hence the numerous instances of Romans being designated only
by these two names, even in cases where a third or fourth name was
possessed by the person. Every Roman citizen, besides belonging to
a gens, was also frequently a member of a familia, contained in a
gens, and accordingly might have a third name or _cognomen_. Such
cognomina were derived by the Romans from a variety of mental or
bodily peculiarities, or from some remarkable event in the life of
the person who was the founder of the familia. Such cognomina are,
Asper, Imperiosus, Magnus, Maximus, Publicola, Brutus, Capito, Cato,
Naso, Labeo, Caecus, Cicero, Scipio, Sulla, Torquatus, &c. These
names were in most cases hereditary, and descended to the latest
members of a familia; in some cases they ceased with the death of the
person to whom they were given for special reasons. Many Romans had a
second cognomen (_cognomen secundum_ or _agnomen_), which was given
to them as an honorary distinction, and in commemoration of some
memorable deed or event of their life, _e.g._ Africanus, Asiaticus,
Hispallus, Cretensis, Macedonicus, Allobrogicus, &c. Such agnomina
were sometimes given by one general to another, sometimes by the army
and confirmed by the chief-general, sometimes by the people in the
comitia, and sometimes they were assumed by the person himself, as
in the case of L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. The regular order in
which these names followed one another was:--1. praenomen; 2. nomen
gentilicium; 3. cognomen primum; 4. cognomen secundum or agnomen.
Sometimes the name of the tribe to which a person belonged, was added
to his name, in the ablative case, as Q. Verres Romilia, C. Claudius
Palatina. If a person by adoption passed from one gens into another,
he assumed the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen of his adoptive father,
and added to these the name of his former gens, with the termination
_anus_. Thus C. Octavius, after being adopted by his uncle C. Julius
Caesar, was called C. Julius Caesar Octavianus, and the son of L.
Aemilius Paullus, when adopted by P. Cornelius Scipio, was called P.
Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. [ADOPTIO.] Slaves had only one name,
and usually retained that which they had borne before they came
into slavery. If a slave was restored to freedom, he received the
praenomen and nomen gentilicium of his former master, and to these
was added the name which he had had as a slave. Instances of such
freedmen are, T. Ampius Menander, a freedman of T. Ampius Balbus,
L. Cornelius Chrysogonus, a freedman of L. Cornelius Sulla, and M.
Tullius Tiro, freedman of M. Tullius Cicero.
NŎMŎPHỸLĂCES (νομοφύλακες), certain magistrates or official persons
of high authority, who exercised a control over other magistrates,
and indeed over the whole body of the people, it being their duty to
see that the laws were duly administered and obeyed. Mention is made
of such officers at Sparta and elsewhere, but no such body existed at
Athens, for they must have had a power too great for the existence of
a democracy. The Senate of 500, or the Areopagitic council, performed
in some measure the office of law-guardians; but the only persons
designated by this name appear to have been inferior functionaries (a
sort of police), whose business it was to prevent irregularities and
disturbances in the public assemblies.
NŎMOS (νόμος). This word comprehends the notion not only of
established or statute law, but likewise of all customs and opinions
to which long prescription or natural feeling gives the force of
law. Before any written codes appeared, law was promulgated by the
poets or wise men, who sang the great deeds of their ancestors, and
delivered their moral and political lessons in verse. As civilisation
advanced, laws were reduced to writing, in the shape either of
regular codes or distinct ordinances, and afterwards publicly
exhibited, engraved on tablets, or hewn on columns. The first
written laws we hear of are those of Zaleucus. The first at Athens
were those of Draco, called θεσμοὶ, and by that name distinguished
from the νόμοι of Solon. The laws of Lycurgus were not written. He
enjoined that they should never be inscribed on any other tablet
than the hearts of his countrymen. Those of Solon were inscribed on
wooden tablets, arranged in pyramidal blocks, turning on an axis,
called ἄξονες and κύρβεις. They were first hung in the Acropolis, but
afterwards brought down to the Prytaneum.
NŎMŎTHĔTAE (νομόθεται), movers or proposers of laws, the name of a
legislative committee at Athens, which, by an institution of Solon,
was appointed to amend and revise the laws. At the first κυρία
ἐκκλησία in every year, any person was at liberty to point out
defects in the existing code or propose alterations. If his motion
was deemed worthy of attention, the third assembly might refer
the matter to the Nomothetae. They were selected by lot from the
Heliastic body; it being the intention of Solon to limit the power
of the popular assembly by means of a superior board emanating from
itself, composed of citizens of mature age, bound by a stricter oath,
and accustomed to weigh legal principles by the exercise of their
judicial functions. The number of the committee so appointed varied
according to the exigency of the occasion. The people appointed
five advocates (σύνδικοι) to attend before the board and maintain
the policy of the existing institution. If the proposed measure
met the approval of the committee, it passed into law forthwith.
Besides this, the Thesmothetae were officially authorised to review
the whole code, and to refer to the _Nomothetae_ all statutes which
they considered unworthy of being retained. Hence appears the
difference between _Psephisma_ (ψήφισμα) and _Nomos_ (νόμος). The
mere resolution of the people in assembly was a _psephisma_, and only
remained in force a year, like a decree of the senate. Nothing was a
_law_ that did not pass the ordeal of the Nomothetae.