The old Latin deities were often in pairs, masculine and feminine. Divus, that part of their title that is still recognized as belonging to the supernatural, is from the same source as the Sanscrit deva, Persian dev, Greek δῖος, 0εός, Zeus, and was applied to all. Divus Janus and Diva Jana were one of these pairs, who presided over day and night, as the sun and moon. Divajana became Diana; and as groves were sacred to her, and she was as pure a goddess as Vesta, there was every reason for identifying her with the Greek Artemis, and giving her possession of the temple of Ephesus, and the black stone image that “fell down from Jupiter,” or the sky; she had Apollo given as her fellow instead of Janus, and thenceforth was the goddess of the silver bow, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, as Artemis had been of Zeus and Leto. Her name slept as a mere pagan device till the sixteenth century, when romances of chivalry gave place to the semi-classical pastoral, of which Greece was usually the scene. Jorge de Montemayor, the Spanish gentleman who led the way in this flowery path, named his heroine, Diana, and she was quickly copied by the sponsors of Diane de Poitiers, the fair widow whose colours of black and white were worn by Henry II. of France even to his last fatal tournament. Diane thus became so fashionable in France, that when the Cavalier court was there residing, the English caught the fashion, and thenceforth Lady Dye at times appeared among the Ladies Betty and Fanny of the court. In the lower classes, Diana seems to be at times confused with the Scriptural Dinah, though it may sometimes be adopted as a Bible name, since a peasant has been known to pronounce that he well knew who was “greatest ‘Diana of the Ephesians,’—a great lady of those parts, and very charitable to the poor.” At Rome Jewesses now alone bear it, and Italian Christians consequently despise it, and only give it to dogs. However, in the eighteenth century, a Monna Diana existed at Florence, who is recorded as an example of the benefits of a heavy head wrapper, for a large stone fell upon her head from a building, and she took it for a small pebble!
Diana’s fellow, Divus Janus, had a very different career. He was sometimes called Dianus, but much more commonly Janus, and from being merely the sun, he became allegorical of the entire year, and had a statue with four faces for the seasons, and hands pointing the one to 300, the other to 55, thus making up the amount of days then given to the year; and before him were twelve altars, one for each month. He thus presided over the beginning of everything, and the first month of the year was from him called Januarius, as were all gates jani, and doors januæ; and above all, that gate between the Sabines and the Romans, which was open when they were friends, shut when they were foes. When the two nations had become thoroughly fused together, the gate grew to a temple; but the ceremony of shutting the doors was still followed on the rare occasions when Rome was at peace, and of opening them when at war to let the god go out, as it was now said, to help the Romans. This idea of peace, however, turned Janus into a legendary peaceful monarch, who only wore two heads that he might look both ways to see either side of a question, and keys were put into his hand as the guardian of each man’s gate. His own special gate continued to be called Janicula, and his name passed from the door, janua, to the porter, janitor; and thence in modern times to St. Peter, who, bearing the keys, was called by the Italians, il Janitore di Cielo, and thence the fish, which was thought to bear the mark of St. Peter’s thumb, was il janitore, or, as we call it, the John Dory, if not from its gilded scales, dorée or dorado. Its Spanish name of San Pedro would favour the janitor theory. The month of Janus, Janvier, January, Gennaro, Januar, has kept its name, like all the other months of the Roman calendar, in spite of the French attempt to displace them with Glacial, Pluvial, &c. Birth in the month of January occasioned the name of Januarius to be given to various persons in the time of the Roman empire, to one of the seven sons of St. Felicitas, to a martyr whose day is the 13th of October, and especially to St. Januarius, of Beneventum, who in the persecution of Diocletian was thrown to wild beasts at Pozzuoli, and on their refusal to hurt him, was beheaded. His blood was already a religious curiosity before the eighth century, when it was thought to have delivered Naples from an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and it furnishes one of the most questionable and most hotly-defended miracles of the Church of Rome. After this Gennaro cannot fail to be a very frequent Neapolitan Christian name.[[69]]
Section II.—Florentius.
The goddess of flowers was called from their Latin name flos, the same that has passed into all European languages except the German. In late times the name of Florus was formed from that of the goddess, and is memorable as that of the procurator, whose harshness drove the Jews to their last rebellion. Flora was probably first used merely as the feminine of Florus. There is a church at Florence to SS. Fiore and Lucilla, otherwise the first occurrence of any variety of Flora is in Roman-Gothic Spain, where the unhappy daughter of Count Julian was called by the Spanish diminutive Florinda, and thus caused the name to be so much detested, that while Spanish ballads called her la Cava, the wicked, her Christian name was only bestowed upon dogs, and curiously enough it was the little spaniel (a Spanish breed), for which Flora was considered in England as an appropriate name. A Spanish maiden, however, who was martyred by the Moors in 851, brought Flora into better repute; and Flore became known to the French, though probably first adopted as a romantic epithet; and through the close connection between France and Scotland, it passed to the latter country, the especial land of floral names, and there became frequent as the English equivalent to the Gaelic Finghin. It was spelt as Florie by the island heroine of the '45. Florentius was the natural product of the goddess Flora, and named a female saint, Florentia, martyred with two others, both men, in Diocletian’s persecution in Gaul, and commemorated by a monastery built over the spot. St. Florentius was likewise a Gaul, and was sent by St. Martin to preach in Poitou. His relics were at first at Saumur, but in the eleventh century were taken to Roye, and in the time of Louis XI., were divided between the two cities. As an Angevin saint, he quite accounts for the prevalence of Florence in the masculine gender among the Anglo-Norman nobles of the middle ages; but it soon died away. The recent revival is chiefly owing to the name having been given to English girls born at the Italian city so called, and it has since acquired a deeper and dearer honour in the person of Florence Nightingale. From the city, or else as a diminutive of Florentius, arose Florentinus, a name borne by various distinguished persons in the latter days of the empire, and saintly in the person of a martyr of Burgundy. Florentina was one of the daughters of St. Leander, of Spain, and the relics of these saints scattered the names of Florentin and Florentine over a wide extent in France. Besides these, should be mentioned the romantic name, Blanchefleur. It is given to Sir Trystan’s mother, and probably translates some Keltic name analogous to the Erse Blathnaid, Finbil, and Finscoth, all of which mean white flower.
The Irish Florence, or Flory, so common among the peasantry, is intended for Finghin, or Fineen (fair offspring); also for Flann, Fithil, and Flaithri.[[70]]
[67]. Keightley; Michaelis.
[68]. Keightley; Smith; Key, Latin Grammar; Madame Scopenhauer, Memoirs.
[69]. Keightley; Smith; Bouterwek; Istoria de Firenze; Brand; Butler; Spanish Literature.
[70]. Smith; Butler; Irish Society; Pott.