chapter 22._
ALSO IN: _Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 2 (Works, volume 2)._
NINE WAYS, The.
See AMPHIPOLIS; also, ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.
NINETY-FIVE THESES OF LUTHER, The.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1517.
NINETY-TWO, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.
NINEVEH.
"In or about the year before Christ 606, Nineveh, the great city, was destroyed. For many hundred years had she stood in arrogant splendor, her palaces towering above the Tigris and mirrored in its swift waters; army after army had gone forth from her gates and returned laden with the spoils of conquered countries; her monarchs had ridden to the high place of sacrifice in chariots drawn by captive kings. But her time came at last. The nations assembled and encompassed her around [the Medes and the Babylonians, with their lesser allies]. Popular tradition tells how over two years lasted the siege; how the very river rose and battered her walls; till one day a vast flame rose up to heaven; how the last of a mighty line of kings, too proud to surrender, thus saved himself, his treasures and his, capital from the shame of bondage. Never was city to rise again where Nineveh had been." The very knowledge of the existence of Nineveh was lost so soon that, two centuries later, when Xenophon passed the ruins, with his Ten Thousand retreating Greeks, he reported them to be the ruins of a deserted city of the Medes and called it Larissa. Twenty-four centuries went by, and the winds and the rains, in their slow fashion, covered the bricks and stones of the desolated Assyrian capital with a shapeless mound of earth. Then came the searching modern scholar and explorer, and began to excavate the mound, to see what lay beneath it. First the French Consul, Botta, in 1842; then the Englishman Layard, in 1845; then the later English scholar, George Smith, and others; until buried Nineveh has been in great part brought to light. Not only the imperishable monuments of its splendid art have been exposed, but a veritable library of its literature, written on tablets and cylinders of clay, has been found and read. The discoveries of the past half-century, on the site of Nineveh, under the mound called Koyunjik, and elsewhere in other similarly-buried cities of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, may reasonably be called the most extraordinary additions to human knowledge which our age has acquired.
_Z. A. Ragozin, Story of Chaldea, introduction, chapters 1-4._
ALSO IN: _A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains; and Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon._
_G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries_
See, also, ASSYRIA; and LIBRARIES, ANCIENT.
NINEVEH, Battle of (A.D. 627).
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
NINFEO, Treaty of.
See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.
NINIQUIQUILAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
NIPAL NEPAUL: English war with the Ghorkas.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
NIPMUCKS, NIPNETS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, and 1676-1678 KING PHILIP'S WAR.
NISÆAN PLAINS, The.
The famous horse-pastures of the ancient Medes. "Most probably they are to be identified with the modern plains of Khawah and Alishtar, between Behistun and Khorramabad, which are even now considered to afford the best summer pasturage in Persia. … The proper Nisæa is the district of Nishapur in Khorasan, whence it is probable that the famous breed of horses was originally brought."
_G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Media, chapter 1, with foot-note._
NISCHANDYIS.
See SUBLIME PORTE.
NISHAPOOR: Destruction by the Mongols (1221).
See KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.
NISIB, Battle of (1839).
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
NISIBIS, Sieges of (A. D. 338-350).
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
NISIBIS, Theological School of.
See NESTORIANS.
----------NISMES: Start--------
NISMES: Origin.
See VOLCÆ.
NISMES: A. D. 752-759. Recovery from the Moslems.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759.
----------NISMES: End--------
NISSA, Siege and battle (1689-1690).
See HUNGARY; A. D. 1683-1699.
NITIOBRIGES, The.
These were a tribe in ancient Gaul whose capital city was Aginnum, the modern town of Agen on the Garonne.
_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 17._
NIVELLE, Battle of the (1813).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
NIVÔSE, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.
NIZAM. Nizam's dominions.
See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748.
NIZZA.
See NICE.
NO. NO AMON.
See THEBES, EGYPT.
NO MAN'S LAND, Africa.
See GRIQUAS.
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NO MAN'S LAND, England.
In the open or common field system which prevailed in early England, the fields were divided into long, narrow strips, wherever practicable. In some cases, "little odds and ends of unused land remained, which from time immemorial were called 'no man's land,' or 'anyone's land,' or 'Jack's land,' as the case might be."
_F. Seebohm, English Village Community,