Note 1247 — Chapter XXI · DIANUS AND DIANA

Virbius may perhaps be etymologically connected with viridis, “green,” and verbena, “a sacred bough.” If this were so, Virbius would be “the Green One.” We are reminded of those popular personifications of the spring, Green George and Jack in the Green. See above, pp. 75 sq., 82 sq. As to the proposed derivation from a root meaning “green” Professor R. S. Conway writes to me (10th January 1903): “From this meaning of the root a derivative in -bus would not strike me as so strange; vir-bho might conceivably mean ‘growing green.’” In my Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship (pp. 282 sq.) I followed Mr. A. B. Cook in interpreting a passage of Plautus (Casina, ii. 5. 23-29) as a reference to the priests of Nemi in the character of mortal Jupiters. But a simpler and more probable explanation of the passage has been given by Dr. L. R. Farnell. See A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” Folk-lore, xvi. (1905) pp. 322 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, in The Hibbert Journal, iv. (1906) p. 932.