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]]
[74]. Diefenbach; Arnold; Livy; Butler.
Section VII.—Sibylla.
The Sibyls were beings peculiar to Roman mythology, prophetesses half human, half divine, living to a great age, but not immortal. Etymologists used to interpret their name as coming from the Greek Ζεύς and βουλή (Zeus' councils), but it is far more satisfactorily explained as coming from sabius, or sabus, an old Italian, but not a Latin word, which lives still in the vernacular Sabio, thus making Sibulla signify a wise old woman.
Old, indeed! for the Cumean Sibyl, who guided Æneas to the infernal regions, was likewise said to be the same who brought the prophetic books for sale to Tarquinius Priscus, and on each refusal of the sum that she demanded for them, carried them off, destroyed one, and brought the rest back rated at a higher price. The single remaining roll bought by the king was said to contain all the mysterious prophecies that were afterwards verified by the course of events, and above all, that prediction of the coming rule of peace, which Virgil, following Theocritus, embodied in his eclogue as fulfilled in Augustus. That eclogue, flattery though it were, won for Virgil his semi-Christian fame, and caused the learned men of Italy to erect the Sibyls into the personifications of heathen presages of Gospel truth—