Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

XEFASTI DIES.

269

NEXUM.

without both, their parents being' citizens of
Athens, or in other words, in the Si'kou e/jt-nopiov
and St'icai fefi'as. The time when nautodicae
were first instituted is not mentioned, but it
must have been previous to Pericles, and
perhaps as early as the time of Cleisthenes.
The nautodicae were appointed every year
by lot in the month of Gamelion, and pro-
bably attended to the SUai e/uTropw only dur-
ing the winter, when navigation ceased,
whereas the Si'xai fevtas might be brought
before them all the year round.
NEFASTI DIES. [Dies.]
XEGOTIATORES, signified specially dur-
ing the later times of the republic llonian
citizens settled in the provinces, who lent
money upon interest or bought up corn on
speculation, which they sent to Rome as well
as to other places. .Their chief business how-
ever was lending money upon interest, and
hence we find the words n-egotia, negotiation
and negotiari used in this sense. The nego-
tiatores are distinguished from the publicani,
and from the mefcatores. The negotiatores
in the provinces corresponded to the argen-
tarii and feneratores at Rome.

NEMEA (feVea, ve/j-eia, or vejaala), the Xe-
mean games, one of the four great national
festivals of the Greeks. It was held at Ne-
mea, a place near Cleonae in Argolis, and is
said to have been originally instituted by the
Seven against Thebes in commemoration of
the death of Opheltes, afterwards called Ar-
chemorus. The games were revived by Her-
cules, after he had slain the Xemean lion; and
were from this time celebrated in honour of
Zeus. They were at first of a warlike charac-
ter, and only warriors and their sons were
allowed to take part in them ; subsequently,
however, they were thrown open to all the
Greeks. The various games were horse-
racing, running in armour in the stadium,
wrestling, chariot-racing and the discus, box-
ing, throwing the spear and shooting with
the bow, to which we may add musical con-
tests. The prize given to the victors was at
first a chaplet of olive-branches, but after-
wards a chaplet of green parsley. The pre-
sidency of these games, and the management
of them, belonged at different times to Cleo-
nae, Corinth, and Argos. They were cele-
brated twice in every Olympiad, viz. at the
commencement of every second Olympic year,
in the winter, and soon after the commence-
ment of every fourth Olympic year, in the
summer.

NEXIA. [Ftjnus, p. 188, a.]

XEOCORI (Vecoxdpoi), 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 Ro-
man emperors the word was especially ap-
plied to those cities in Asia, (vhich erected
temples to the Roman emperors, since the
whole city in every such case was regarded
as the guardian of the worship of the em-
peror. Accordingly we frequently find on
the coins of Ephesus, Smyrna, and other
cities, the epithet NcwKopos, which also occurs
on the inscriptions of these cities.

XEPTUXALIA, 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 Kept, 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 Xexuni included Maneipium
[Man-cimum] ; in another sense, Mancipium
and Xexum are opposed in the same way in
which Sale and Mortgage or Pledge are op-
posed. 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, re-
spectively 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 nundi-
nae, 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 satis-
fying his debt. But the creditor might treat
the debtor, who was auttictus, as a slave, and
compel him to work out his debt; and the
treatment was often very severe. The Lex
Poetilia (b. c. 32b) 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