in fabulous history, a celebrated Centaur, son of Ixion and a Cloud. He offered violence to Dejanira, whom Hercules had intrusted to his care, with orders to carry her across the river Evenus. Hercules saw the distress of his wife from the opposite shore of the river, and immediately he let fly one of his poisoned arrows, which struck the Centaur to the heart. Nessus, as he expired, gave the tunic he then wore to Dejanira, assuring her that from the poisoned blood which had flowed from his wounds, it had received the power of calling a husband away from unlawful loves. Dejanira received it with pleasure, and this mournful present caused the death of Hercules.—A river which separates Thrace from Macedonia. It is also called Nessus, Nestos, and Nestus. Nestor, in fabulous history, a son of Neleus and Chloris, nephew to Pelias and grandson to Neptune. He had eleven brothers, who were all killed with his father by Hercules. His tender age detained him at home, and was the cause of his preservation. The conqueror spared his life and placed him upon the throne of Pylos. He married Euryclea the daughter of Clymenus; or, according to others, Anaxibia the daughter of Atreus. He soon distinguished himself in the field of battle; and was present at the nuptials of Perithous, when a bloody engagement took place between the Lapithae and Centaurs. As king of Pylos and Messenia he led his subjects to the Trojan war, where he distinguished himself among the rest of the Grecian chiefs, by eloquence, address, wisdom, justice, and uncommon prudence. Homer displays his character as the most perfect of all his heroes; and Agamemnon exclaims, that if he had 20 generals like Nestor, he should soon see the walls of Troy reduced to ashes. After the Trojan war Nestor retired to Greece, where he enjoyed in the bosom of his family the peace and tranquility which were due to his wisdom and to his age. The manner and the time of his death are unknown: the ancients are all agreed that he lived three generations of men; which length of time is supposed to be 300 years, though more probably only 90 years, allowing 30 years for each generation. From that circumstance, therefore, it was usual among the Greeks and the Latins, when they wished a long and happy life to their friends, to wish them to see the years of Nestor. He had many children; two daughters, Pisidice, and Polycaeste; and seven sons, Perseus, Stratius, Arethus, Echephrus, Pisistratus, Antilochus, and Thrasymedes.

Nestor was one of the Argonauts, according to Valerius Flaccus, v. 380, &c.—A poet of Lycaonia in the age of the emperor Severus. He was father to Pisander, who under the emperor Alexander wrote some fabulous stories.—One of the body guards of Alexander.

Nestor, whose secular name is not known, was a native of Russia, and the earliest historian of the north. He was born in 1056 at Biełozero; and in the 10th year of his age he assumed the monastic habit in the convent of Petcherski at Kiof, and took the name of Nestor. He there made a considerable proficiency in the Greek language: but seems to have formed his style and manner rather from the Byzantine historians, Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Synecles, than from the ancient classics. The time of Nestor's death is not ascertained; but he is supposed to have lived to an advanced age, and to have died about the year 1115.

His great work is his Chronicle, to which he has prefixed an introduction, which after a short sketch of the early state of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, contains a geographical description of Russia and the adjacent regions; an account of the Slavonian nations, their manners, their emigrations from the banks of the Danube, their dispersion, and settlement in the several countries wherein their descendants are now established. He then enters upon a chronological series of the Russian annals, from the year 858 to about 1113. His style is simple and unadorned, such as suits a mere recorder of facts; but his chronological exactness, though it renders his narrative dry and tedious, contributes to ascertain the era and authenticity of the Nestorian events which he relates.

It is remarkable (says Mr. Cox, from whom we have taken this narrative), that an author of such importance, whose name frequently occurs in the early Russian books, should have remained in obscurity above 600 years; and been scarcely known to his modern countrymen, the origin and actions of whose ancestors he records with such circumstantial exactness. A copy of his Chronicle was given in 1668 by Prince Radziwiłł to the library of Königsburg, where it lay unnoticed till Peter the Great, in his passage through that town, ordered a transcript of it to be sent to Petersburg. But it still was not known as the performance of Nestor: for when Muller in 1732 published the first part of a German translation, he mentioned it as the work of the abbot Theodosius of Kiof; an error which arose from the following circumstance: The ingenious editor not being at that time sufficiently acquainted with the Slavonian tongue, employed an interpreter, who, by mistaking a letter in the title, supposed it to have been written by a person whose name was Theodosius. This ridiculous blunder was soon circulated and copied by many foreign writers, even long after it had been candidly acknowledged and corrected by Muller.