Chapter CV: Section VI: Quirinus

Quirinus, one of the oldest of the war-gods, was called from the Oscan _quiris_ (a spear), which likewise was the source of the old Roman name of Quirites, and of that of the Quirinal Hill. Spearmen alike were the Quirites and their unconquerable foes; the Gjermanner, the Germans, nay, probably _gher_ and _quiris_ are the very same word, equally related to the Keltic _coir_.

Others, however, call Quirinus the mere personified god of the town of Cures. When all had become confusion in the Roman mind as to their old objects of worship, and they had mingled them with “gods whom their fathers knew not,” they took it into their heads that Quirinus was the deified Romulus who had been transported to the skies by his father, Mars, in the middle of a muster of his warriors in the Campus Martius; and when a still later age distrusted this apotheosis, some rationalist Roman suggested that, weary of Romulus' tyranny, the senators had secretly assassinated him during the review, and to prevent detection had cut his body to pieces, each carried a portion home under his toga, and professed to have beheld the translation to the skies. Quirinus had become a cognomen at the Christian era, but first occurs as a Christian name in 304, when St. Quirinus was Bishop of Siscia on the Save, and after a good confession before the tyrant Maximus, was dragged in chains through the cities on the banks of the Danube, and then drowned at Sabaria, now Sarwar. His relics were afterwards taken to Rome, but are now said to be in Bavaria; and in his honour Cyran has become a French name. As a saint connected with Germany, various chapters arose in commemoration of him; and Mrs. Elizabeth Carter describes her meeting with a pretty little _chanoinesse_ at Spa, who wore her medal of St. Quirinus, but was able to give so little account of him that Mrs. Carter, better read in Roman history than in hagiology, concluded him to be the “Saint who built Rome and killed his brother.”

Quirinius was the name of the Roman governor whom St. Luke called in Greek Κυρήνιος, and our translators render Cyrenius.

The name of Romulus is thought by many to have been a mere myth made out of that of his city Roma, a word that probably signified strength, and was no inappropriate title for that empire of iron. Ῥώμη is the Greek word for strength; the same root is found in the Latin _robur_, and it may be in the Teutonic _ruhm_ (fame). Others say that _groma_ (a cross-road) was the origin of this most famous of all local titles.

However this may be, after Romulus Augustulus had seen the twelve centuries of Rome fulfilled, Romolo still lingered on as a name in Italy; the first bishop of Fiesole was thus named, and was so popular at Florence, that Catherine dei Medici was actually christened Romola.

When to be a Roman citizen was the highest benefit a man of a subject nation could enjoy, Romanus was treated as a cognomen. Pliny had two friends so called. There are seven saints thus named, and three Byzantine emperors. But when Teuton sway had made a Roman the meanest and most abject epithet, Romain or Romano died away in popularity, and only occurs now and then in French genealogy, though it is still used in Italy.

They must not be confounded with Romeo and Romuald, which are genuine Teutonic.[74]

-----

Footnote 74:

Diefenbach; Arnold; Livy; Butler.