(Cornelius),** a celebrated Latin biographer, who flourished in the time of Julius Caesar, and lived, according to St Jerome, to the fifth year of Augustus. He was an Italian, if we may credit Cattullus, and born at Hofilia, a small town in the territory of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul. Ausonius, however, will have it that he was born in the Gauls: and in that they may both be in the right, provided that under the name of Gaul is comprehended Gallia Cisalpina, which is in Italy. Leander Alberti thinks Nepos's country was Verona; and he is sure that he was either born in that city or neighbourhood. For the rest, Cicero and Atticus were friends of our author; who wrote the lives of the Greek historians, as he himself attests in that of Dion, speaking of Philistus. What he says, also, in the lives of Cato and Hannibal, proves that he had also written the lives of the Latin captains and historians. He wrote some other excellent works which are lost.

All that we have left of his at present is, "The Lives of the illustrious Greek and Roman Captains," which were a long time ascribed to Aemilius Probus, who published them, as it is said, under his own name, to insinuate himself thereby into the favour of the emperor Theodosius; but, in the course of time, the fraud has been discovered, although several learned persons have confounded the two authors. This piece has been translated into French by the Sieur de Claveret, with a dedication to the duke of Longueville, in 1663; and again by M. le Gras, then of the congregation of the oratory at Paris 1729, 12mo. We have an excellent translation of it in English, by several hands at Oxford, which has gone through several editions.

**NEPTUNE,** in Pagan worship, the god of the sea, was the son of Saturn and Veila, or Ops, and the brother of Jupiter and Pluto. He assisted Jupiter in his expeditions; on which that god, when he arrived at the supreme power, assigned him the sea and the islands for his empire. He was, however, expelled from heaven with Apollo for conspiring against Jupiter, when they were both employed by Laomedon king of Phrygia in building the walls of Troy; but that prince dismissing Neptune without a reward, he sent a sea-monster to lay waste the country, on which he was obliged to expose his daughter Hefione. He is said to have been the first inventor of horsemanship and chariot racing; on which account Mithridates king of Pontus threw chariots drawn by four horses into the sea in honour of this god; and the Romans instituted horse-races in the circus at his festival, during which all other horses left working, and the mules were adorned with wreaths of flowers.

In a contest with Minerva he produced a horse by striking the earth with his trident; and on another occasion, in a trial of skill with Minerva and Vulcan, produced a bull, whence that animal was sacrificed to him. His favourite wife was Amphitrite, whom he long courted in vain, till sending the dolphin to intercede for him, he met with success; on which he rewarded the dolphin by placing him among the stars. He had also two other wives, one of whom was called Salacia from the salt-water; the other Venitia from the ebbing and flowing of the tides. He had likewise many concubines, by whom he had a great number of children. He is represented with black hair, with a garment of an azure or sea-green, holding his trident in his hand, and seated in a large shell drawn by sea-horses, attended by the sea-gods Palemon, Glaucus, and Phorcys, and the sea-goddesses Thetis, Melita, and Panopea, and a long train of tritons and sea-nymphs.

This deity was in Egypt known by the name of Cenosbus or Canopus, and was worshipped as the numen aquarum or spirit of the Nile. His emblem was the figure of certain vases or pitchers, with which the Egyptians filtrated the water of their sacred river, in order to purify it and render it fit for use. From the mouth of each of these vases, which were charged with hieroglyphics, arose the head, and sometimes the head and hands, of a man or woman. Such are the emblems which still remain of the Egyptian Neptune or Canobus; and it was by this emblem that the tutelar god of Egypt vanquished the god of Chaldea in the ridiculous manner mentioned by Ruffinus in his ecclesiastical history.*

* Lib. 25.

"The Chaldaeans (says he) who adored the fire, carried their god into various countries that he might try his strength in contests with other gods. He vanquished, as we may easily conceive, the images made of gold, silver, brass, and wood, &c. by reducing them to ashes; and thus the worship of fire was everywhere established. The priest of Canobus, unwilling, as became him, to admit the superiority of strange gods, contrived to make his god vanquish the god of Chaldaea in a pitched battle. The vases which were worshipped as the emblems of Canobus being used for filtering the waters of the Nile, were of course perforated on all sides with very small holes. This faithful priest having stopped all the holes in one of these with wax, and painted the vase of different colours for a reason which the reader will admit to be a good one, filled it up with water, and fitted to its mouth the head of an idol. This emblem of Canobus was then placed in a small fire brought by the Chair- Chaldaeans as the emblem of their god; and thus the gods of Egypt and Chaldea were forced into battle. The contest, however, was of short duration. The heat melting the wax made way for the water to run out, which quickly extinguished the fire; and thus Canobus vanquished the god of the Chaldaeans." Ridiculous as this story is, it is perfectly suitable to the genius of paganism and the mean artifices of the pagan priesthood; but we suspect that the historian laboured under one mistake, and substituted the Chaldaeans instead of the Persians. See Polytheism.