Chapter LXXXIX: Section IX: Lælius, &c

Lælius, an unexplained gentile name, left to the Italians, Lelio, which was borne by one of the heresiarchs Socini; also Lelia, in French Lélie, and sometimes confused with the names from Cœlius.

It was said that the city of Pompeii was so called from _pompa_, the splendour or pomp with which Hercules founded it. However this might be, it is likely that from it came the nomen of the Pompeian gens, which did not appear in Rome till a late period, and which its enemies declared was founded by Aulus Pompeius, a flute-player. The gallant Cnæus Pompeius won for himself the surname of Magnus, and made sufficient impression on the world to have his name adapted to modern pronunciation by the Pompée of the French, and the English Pompey. When a little negro boy was the favourite appendage of fine ladies of the early seventeenth century, the habit of calling slaves by classical titles, made Pompey the usual designation of these poor little fellows; from whom it descended to little dogs, and though now out of fashion, even for them, it has obtained a set of associations that is likely to prevent that fine old Roman Pompey, surnamed the big, from obtaining any future namesakes, except in Italy, where Pompeio has always flourished, probably from hereditary associations.

On Roman authority, the Porcii were the breeders of _porcus_ (a pig), according to the homely, rural, and agricultural designations of old Latinity, which to modern ears have so dignified a sound. It was the clan of the two Catones, but the masculine has not prevailed; though that “woman well reputed, Cato’s daughter” Porcia, or, as the Italians spelt it, Porzia, caused her name to be handed on in her native land, where Shakespeare took it, not only for her, but for his other heroine—

“Nothing undervalued
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus' Portia;”

from whom Portia, as after his example we make it, has become an exceptional fancy name. The Romans thought no scorn of the title of the unclean beast, and three families in other clans likewise bore its name, Verres, Scrofa, and Aper; the last, it is just possible, being the origin of the Sir Bors of the Round Table; in Welsh, Baez.

The origin of Sulpicius is not known. It may possibly be connected with the obsolete word that named Sulla, from a red spotted visage; but this is uncertain. There were three saints of the name: Severus Sulpicius, a friend of St. Martin; Sulpicius (called the severe), Bishop of Bourges, in the sixth century; and Sulpicius (called the gentle), also Bishop of Bourges, in the seventh. It is an arm of this last of the three that has led to the consecration of the celebrated church at Paris, in the name of St. Sulpice. In Germany, it is Sulpiz.

Terenus (soft or tender) was the origin given by the Romans to the Terentian gens, which produced Terentia, wife of Cicero, called in affection Terentilla, and likewise gave birth to the comic poet, Publius Terentius Afer, known to us as Terence, and to the Germans as Terenz. As a supposed rendering of Turlough, Terence is a very favourite name in Ireland, and is there called Terry, but it prevails nowhere else.

The meaning of the name of Sergius is not known, but the Sergian gens was very ancient, and believed itself to spring from the Trojans. From them Cataline descended, and from another branch the deputy Sergius Paullus, from whom some suppose St. Paul to have taken his name.

One saint called Sergius was martyred at the city of Rasapha, in Syria; and was honoured by the change of the name of the place to Sergiopolis, in Justinian’s time. His relics are at Rome and at Prague; but a far greater favourite as a namesake is the Russian Ssergie, who founded a monastery near Moscow, and died there in 1292, in the highest esteem for sanctity, so that his monastery is a place of devotional pilgrimage, and Ssergij or Sserezka are favourite names in Russia.[61]

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Footnote 61:

Butler; Michaelis; Smith; Facciolati; Courson, _Peuples Bretons_;
Pott; Valerius Maximus.