Chapter LXXXVII: Section VII: Cornelius, &c

The far more honourably distinguished clan of Cornelius has no traceable origin, unless from _cornu belli_ (a war horn), but this is a suggestion of the least well-informed etymologists, and deserves no attention. Scipio and Sylla were the most noted families of this gens, both memorable for very dissimilar qualities; and Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, inherited her name from her father, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus I. The centurion of the _Italian_ band was probably a hereditary Roman Cornelius; but earliest gentile Christian though he were, he was not canonized, and the saint of the Western Church is a martyred Pope Cornelius of the third century, whose relics were brought to Compiègne by Charles the Bald, and placed in the Abbey of St. Corneille, whence again a portion was carried to the Chapter of Rosnay, in Flanders. This translation accounts for the popularity of both the masculine and feminine forms in the Low Countries, in both kingdoms of which they constantly are found, and where Cornelius gets shortened into Kees, Knelis, Nöll, or Nelle, and Cornelia into Keetje, or Kee. As an attempt to translate the native Keltic names beginning with _cu_, or _con_, Cornelius, or Corney, is one of the most frequent Irish designations. Nelleson is the Dutch surname, and Nelson is as likely to be thus derived as from the northern Nielson. The Dantzic contraction is Knelz, and the Illyrians call the feminine Drenka!

The great Fabian gens was old Latin, and was said by Pliny to be so called from their having been the first to cultivate the bean, _faba_, while others say the true form was _fodius_, or _fovius_, from their having invented the digging of pits, _foveæ_, for wolves, a proceeding rather in character with the wary patient disposition displayed by the greatest man of the race, Quintus Fabius Maximus, whose agnomen of Cunctator so well describes the policy that wasted away the forces of the Carthaginian invader. Fabio has been occasionally a modern Italian name; Fabiola is the diminutive of Fabia; Fabianus the adoptive augmentation, whence the occasional French Fabien, and, more strange to record, the Lithuanian Pobjus.

Fabricius is probably from _Faber_ (a workman), but there was no person of note of the family except Caius Fabricius Luscinus, whose interview with Pyrrhus and his elephant has caused him to be for ever remembered. Fabrizio Colonna, however, seems to be his only namesake.

_Flavus_ and _Fulvus_ both mean shades of yellow, and there were both a Flavian and a Fulvian gens, no doubt from the complexion of an early ancestor, Flavius being probably a yellow-haired mountaineer with northern blood; Fulvius a tawny Italian. It is in favour of this supposition that Constantius, who brought the Flavian gens to the imperial throne, had the agnomen Chlorus, also expressing a light complexion. Out of compliment to his family the derivatives of Flavius became common, as Flavianus, Flavia, and Flavilla. Flavio is now and then found in modern Italy, and Flavia figured in the poetry and essays of the last century. Fulvia, “the married woman,” as her rival Cleopatra calls her, was the wife of Antony, and gave her name an evil fame by her usage of the head of the murdered Cicero.[58]

The Herminian gens is believed to be of Sabine origin, and its first syllable, that lordly _herr_, which we traced in the Greek Hera and Hercules, and shall find again in the German Herman. There is little doubt that the Roman Herminius and the brave Cheruscan chief, whom he called Arminius, were in the same relationship as were the Emilii and Amaler.

Herminius is the word that left to Italy the graceful legacy of Erminia, which was in vogue, by inheritance, among Italian ladies when Tasso bestowed it upon the Saracen damsel who was captured by Tancred, and fascinated by the graces of her captor. Thence the French adopted it as Hermine, and it has since been incorrectly supposed to be the Italian for Hermione; indeed, Scott indiscriminately calls the mysterious lady in George Heriot’s house Erminia or Hermione. The Welsh have obtained it likewise, by inheritance, in the form of Ermin, which, however, they now murder by translating it into Emma.

Hortensius (a gardener), from _hortus_, a garden, belonged to an honourable old plebeian gens, and has been continued in Italy, both in the masculine Ortensio, and feminine Ortensia, whence the French obtained their Hortense, probably from Ortensia Mancini, the niece of Mazarin.

The Horatian gens was a very old and noble one, memorable for the battle of the Horatii, in the mythic times of early Rome. Some explain their nomen by _hora_ (an hour), and make it mean the punctual, but this is a triviality suggested by the sound, and the family themselves derived it from the hero ancestor, Horatus, to whom an oak wood was dedicated. The poet Horace bore it as an adoptive name, being of a freedman’s family. Except for Orazio, in Italy, the name of Titian’s son, it slept till Corneille’s tragedy of _Les Horaces_ brought it forward, and the influence of Orazio made it Horatio in England. Thus the brother and son of Sir Robert Walpole bore it, and the literary note of the younger Horace Walpole made it fashionable. Then came our naval hero to give it full glory, and that last mention of his daughter Horatia seems to have brought the feminine forward of late years. The name is not popular elsewhere, but is called by the Russians, Goratij, by the Slovaks, Orac.[59]

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Footnote 58:

Smith; Butler; Facciolati; _Irish Society_.