in fabulous history, was the son of Neleus and Chloris, nephew to Pelias, and grandson to Neptune. He had eleven brothers, who, with his father, were all killed by Hercules. His tender age detained him at home, and proved 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 Pirithous, when a bloody encounter took place between the Centaurs and the Lapithae. As king of Pylos and Messenia, he led his subjects to the Trojan war, where he distinguished himself amongst the Grecian chiefs, by his eloquence, address, wisdom, justice, and sagacity. After the Trojan war, Nestor returned to Greece, where he enjoyed in the bosom of his family the peace and tranquillity which were necessary at his advanced age. The manner and the time of his death are equally unknown. The ancients are all agreed that he outlived three generations of men. He had two daughters, Pistide and Polycaste; and seven sons, Perseus, Stratocles, Aretus, Echepron, Pisistratus, Antilochus, and Thrasymedes.

a person whose secular name is not known, was a native of Russia, and the earliest historian of the north. He was born at the town of Bielozerko in the year 1056, and in the nineteenth year of his age he assumed the monastic habit, in the convent of Petcherski, at Kiev, and took the name of Nestor. He there made considerable proficiency in the Greek language, but appears to have formed his style and manner rather from the study of the Byzantine historians, Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Syncellus, than from that of the ancient classics. The time of Nestor's death has not been 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. In this work, after a short sketch of the early state of the world, taken from the Byzantine writers, he gives a geographical description of Russia and the adjacent regions; with an account of the Slavonian nations, their manners, their emigrations from the banks of the Danube, their dispersion, and their settlement in the several countries in which 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, being such as best suits a mere recorder of facts; and his chronological exactness, although it renders his narrative dry and tedious, has enabled him to fix the era and to determine the authenticity of the events which he relates.