Vihansa

Last updated

Vihansa is the name of a Germanic goddess written on a bronze tablet found in Sint-Huibrechts-Hern, near Tongeren in modern Belgium.

Contents

Name

There is general agreement among scholars that the theonym is Germanic; it probably belongs to the Tungrian dialect or language. Vihansa is most likely a Latinized form of the compound *wiha-ansu-, meaning 'holy deity'. [1]

Dedication

The inscription was engraved by centurion Q. Catius Libo Nepos, who dedicated his shield and spear to the goddess Vihansa, probably after returning to his homeland from a military service: [2] [3]

Vihansae / Q(uintus) Catius Libo Nepos / centurio leg(ionis) III / Cyrenaicae scu/tum et lanceam d(onum) d(edit)

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 13, 03592.

Related Research Articles

Nehalennia

Nehalennia is a goddess of unclear origin, perhaps Germanic or Celtic. She is attested on and depicted upon numerous votive altars discovered around what is now the province of Zeeland, the Netherlands, where the Schelde River flowed into the North Sea. Worship of Nehalennia dates back at least to the 2nd century BC, and veneration of the goddess continued to flourish in northern Europe in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

Ēostre Germanic goddess

Ēostre is a West Germanic spring goddess. By way of the Germanic month bearing her name, she is the namesake of the festival of Easter in some languages. Ēostre is attested solely by Bede in his 8th-century work The Reckoning of Time, where Bede states that during Ēosturmōnaþ, pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in Ēostre's honour, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

Tungri

The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part of Gaul, during the times of the Roman Empire. Within the Roman Empire, their territory was called the Civitas Tungrorum. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" (Germanic), meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in Germania east of the Rhine river were named after them. More specifically, Tacitus was thereby equating the Tungri with the "Germani Cisrhenani" described generations earlier by Julius Caesar. Their name is the source of several place names in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, including Tongeren, Tongerlo Abbey, and Tongelre.

Julia Livia Daughter of Drusus Julius Caesar and Livilla and niece of Caligula (c. AD 7-43)

Julia Livia, was the daughter of Drusus Julius Caesar and Livilla, and granddaughter of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. She was also a first cousin of the emperor Caligula, and niece of the emperor Claudius.

Condrusi Germanic-Belgic tribe

The Condrusi were one of the peoples described by Julius Caesar as Germani Cisrhenani. They survived the Roman invasion and lived in what is now eastern Belgium, during the Roman period.

Catius was an Epicurean philosopher, identified ethnically as an Insubrian Celt from Gallia Transpadana. Epicurean works by Amafinius, Rabirius, and Catius were the earliest philosophical treatises written in Latin. Catius composed a treatise in four books on the physical world and on the highest good. Cicero credits him, along with the lesser prose stylist Amafinius, with writing accessible texts that popularized Epicurean philosophy among the plebs, or common people.

Vagdavercustis Germanic goddess

Vagdavercustis is a Germanic goddess known from a dedicatory inscription on an altar found at Cologne (Köln), Germany. The stone dates from around the 2nd century CE and is now in a museum in Cologne.

The Frisiavones were a Germanic people living near the northern border of Gallia Belgica during the early first millennium AD. Little known about them, but they appear to have resided in the area of what is today the southern Netherlands, possibly in two distinct regions, one in the islands of the river deltas of Holland, and one to the southeast of it.

The Paemani were small a Belgic-Germanic tribe dwelling in Gallia Belgica during the Iron Age. Their ethnic identity remains uncertain. Caesar described them as part of the Germani Cisrhenani, but a number of scholars have argued that their name may be of Celtic origin. Like other Germani Cisrhenani tribes, it is possible that their old Germanic endonym came to be abandoned after a tribal reorganization, that they received their names from their Celtic neighbours, or else that they were fully or partially assimilated to Celtic culture at the time of the Roman invasion of the region in 57 BC. The Paemani are no longer mentioned in later records of the Roman empire.

Georges Raepsaet is a Belgian classical archaeologist and historian of antiquity. His main research interests are the archaeology of ancient technologies, especially traction systems in Greco-Roman land transport and farming, the production and trade of ancient ceramics and the wider socioeconomic implications of these technologies, as well as Roman Gaul. His methods include the use of experimentation.

Jean François Toussaint Rogister was a Belgian virtuoso violist, teacher and composer.

The Caeroesi were a small Belgic-Germanic tribe dwelling in Gallia Belgica during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Their ethnic identity remains uncertain. Caesar described them as part of the Germani Cisrhenani, but their tribal name is probably of Celtic origin. Like other Germani Cisrhenani tribes, it is possible that their old Germanic endonym came to be abandoned after a tribal reorganization, that they received their names from their Celtic neighbours, or else that they were fully or partially assimilated to Celtic culture at the time of the Roman invasion of the region in 57 BC.

The Segni were an ancient tribe dwelling in the Ardennes and Eifel region during the Iron Age. In the winter of 54–53 BC, the Segni assured Caesar, by means of an embassy, that they would not make common cause with the other Germani Cisrhenani.

The Sunuci was the name of a tribal grouping with a particular territory within the Roman province of Germania Inferior, which later became Germania Secunda. Within this province, they were in the Civitas Agrippinenses, with its capital at Cologne. They are thought to have been a Germanic tribe, speaking a Germanic language, although they may also have had a mixed ancestry. They lived between the Meuse and Rur rivers in Roman imperial times. In modern terms this was probably in the part of Germany near Aachen, Jülich, Eschweiler and Düren, and the neighbouring areas in the southern Netherlands, around Valkenburg, and eastern Belgium, in part of the old Duchy of Limburg. There is a town just over the Belgian border from Aachen called Sinnich, in Voeren, which may owe its name to them. In other words, they lived just north of the modern northern limits of Romance languages derived from Latin.

The Baetasii was the name Germanic tribal grouping within the Roman province of Germania Inferior, which later became Germania Secunda. Their exact location is still unknown, although two proposals are, first, that it might be the source of the name of the Belgian village of Geetbets, and second, that it might be further east, nearer to the Sunuci with whom they interacted in the Batavian revolt, and to the Cugerni who lived at Xanten. The area of Gennep, Goch and Geldern has been proposed for example.

The Cugerni were a Germanic tribal grouping with a particular territory within the Roman province of Germania Inferior, which later became Germania Secunda. More precisely they lived near modern Xanten, and the old Castra Vetera, on the Rhine. This part of Germania Secunda was called the Civitas or Colonia Traiana, and it was also inhabited by the Betasii.

Frijjō

*Frijjō ("Frigg-Frija") is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothetical Common Germanic love goddess, the most prominent female member of the *Ansiwiz (gods), and often identified as the spouse of the chief god, *Wōdanaz (Woden-Odin).

Hercules Magusanus is a Romano-Germanic deity or hero worshipped during the early first millennium AD in the Lower Rhine region among the Batavi, Marsaci, Ubii, Cugerni, Baetasii, and probably among the Tungri.

Xavier Delamarre is a French linguist, lexicographer and diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language.

Danielle Gourevitch is a French medical historian and classicist.

References

  1. Neumann 1999, p. 126.
  2. Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie-Thérèse (1995). "Municipium Tungrorum". Latomus. 54 (2): 361–369. ISSN   0023-8856. JSTOR   41537302.
  3. Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie-Thérèse (2017). "Multiculturalisme et multilinguisme dans la cité des Tongres à l'époque romaine". Meertaligheit dan ooit, Tijdschrift van de Alumni Letteren Leuven. 7. pp. 119–125.

Bibliography