Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Virga

（ῥάβδος). A twig, bough, or switch cut from a tree. Hence

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1.

a ridingwhip (Mart.ix. 23);

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2.

a switch for punishing schoolboys (Juv.vii. 210) (see Ludus Litterarius);

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3.

a walking-stick (see Baculum);

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4.

a wand of office carried by the Roman lictors (see Fasces; Lictor);

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5.

a magic wand (Verg. Aen. iv. 242); and

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6.

, in the plural, the ribs of an umbrella (Ovid, A. A. ii. 209).