130 AsTER History ; VERGIL 
Source.—Vergil’s special mention of its growth ‘along the 
curving river Mella’’ * seems to hint at a belief on his part that 
the two names were of common origin. Where the names vary, 
as in the ancient and much-esteemed Palatine codex, they vary 
together, substituting 7 for ¢ of both names, making them Ayillus 
and Milla, But they may really have had nothing to do with 
each other until their similar sound caught the fancy of the poet. 
If the river was named from the plant, it would imply great famil- 
iarity and wide usage on the part of the plant name, neither of 
which seem to have been true; the many American names which 
have originated so, as the Greenbrier river, Hemlock and Alder 
creeks, Laurel run, etc., are derived from conspicuous plants with 
familiar, not unusual, names. If the plant was named from the river 
it may be difficult to parallel the case in modern ‘usage. The 
ancients thought they had such an example in the’ plant Asterion 
which Pausanias remarks is called by the name of the river on the 
banks of which it grows; but probably there was no original con- 
nection between the two words. Servius,+ however, the great 
commentator on Vergil, claimed that the name Amellus, or Amella 
as he terms it, was derived from the river, remarking : 
“« Mella fluvius Galliae et juxta quem herba haec plurima nascitur : unde et amella 
dicitur, sicut populi habitantes juxta Lemannum lacum Alemani dicuntur.’’ 
Was the river-name Mella a Celtic survival ?—The name of this 
river Mella in Lombardy, and the several other rivers of the same 
namic, the two Sammnite cities Melae and Meles (Livy) and the two 
ancient towns in Hispania Baetica named Mellaria, and the ancient 
Gaulish city Melodunum, now Melun on the Seine, all suggest a 
common origin, and seem scattered survivors from an earlier oc- 
cupation than the Roman. Taylor { interprets Melodunum as 
* This river Mella (variants were Mela and Milla) still retains its ancient name, 
being known as Mella or Mela. The Mella rises in the Alps, and falls into the Ogtio 
(the ancient Ollius) just before that river reaches the Po. Catullus, Ixvii, 33, refers to 
the Mella as flowing through the city of Brixia (modern Brescia) ; it is at present one 
and one-half miles from it, 
commentary which passes under his name has many later but undistinguishable accre- 
aw as is indicated by the variants of its MSS. The comment quoted above may, 
. be some scribe’s introductio 
n. 
_¥ Rev. Isaac Taylor, «« Names and their Histories,’ 1896, and his «¢ Words and 
their Places,’’ 222 (1865), 
following a suggestion from Gliick, Kelt. Nam. 139- 
