Nemetona, or 'she of the sacred grove', is a Celtic goddess with roots in northeastern Gaul. She is thought to have been the eponymous deity of the Germano-Celtic people known as the Nemetes; [2] [3] evidence of her veneration is found in their former territory along the Middle Rhine [1] [4] as well in the Altbachtal sanctuary in present-day Trier, Germany. [3] [2] [5] She is also attested in Bath, England, where an altar to her was dedicated by a man of the Gallic Treveri people. [2] [6]
Nemetona's name is derived from the Celtic root nemeto- , referring to consecrated religious spaces, particularly sacred groves. [3] [2] She has been considered a guardian goddess of open-air places of worship. [7] The same root is found in the names of the Romano-British goddess Arnemetia [2] and the Matres Nemetiales (known from an inscription in Grenoble). [3]
Surviving inscriptions often associate Nemetona with Mars (sometimes given the Celtic name Loucetius). She is paired with "Loucetius Mars" in the inscription at Bath, and with "Mars" at Trier and Altrip. [2] [5] [1] Separate inscriptions to Nemetona and to Loucetius have been recovered from the same site in Klein-Winternheim near Mainz. [8] [9] The Altrip site was further notable for yielding a terra cotta depiction of the goddess. [2]
One inscription from Eisenberg appears to identify Nemetona with Victoria: [4]
Noémie Beck considers the identification of Nemetona with Nemain to be "inaccurate and irrelevant". [10]
Erecura or Aerecura was a goddess worshipped in ancient times, often thought to be Celtic in origin, mostly represented with the attributes of Proserpina and associated with the Roman underworld god Dis Pater, as on an altar from Sulzbach. She appears with Dis Pater in a statue found at Oberseebach, Switzerland, and in several magical texts from Austria, once in the company of Cerberus and once probably with Ogmios. A further inscription to her has been found near Stuttgart, Germany. Besides her chthonic symbols, she is often depicted with such attributes of fertility as the cornucopia and apple baskets. She is believed to be similar to Greek Hecate, while the two goddesses share similar names. She is depicted in a seated posture, wearing a full robe and bearing trays or baskets of fruit, in depictions from Cannstatt and Sulzbach. Miranda Green calls Aericura a "Gaulish Hecuba", while Noémie Beck characterizes her as a "land-goddess" sharing both underworld and fertility aspects with Dis Pater.
In Gallo-Roman religion, Rosmerta was a goddess of fertility and abundance, her attributes being those of plenty such as the cornucopia. Rosmerta is attested by statues and by inscriptions. In Gaul she was often depicted with the Roman god Mercury as her consort, but is sometimes found independently.
In Gallo-Roman religion, Ancamna was a goddess worshipped particularly in the valley of the river Moselle. She was commemorated at Trier and Ripsdorf as the consort of Lenus Mars, and at Möhn as the consort of Mars Smertulitanus. At Trier, altars were set up in honour of Lenus Mars, Ancamna and the genii of various pagi of the Treveri, giving the impression of Lenus Mars and Ancamna as tribal protectors honoured in an officially organized cult. Among the few statuettes left as votive offerings at the sanctuary of Mars Smertulitanus and Ancamna at Möhn is one of a genius cucullatus like those offered to the Xulsigiae at the Lenus Mars temple complex in Trier.
In Gallo-Roman religion, Damona was a goddess worshipped in Gaul as the consort of Apollo Borvo and of Apollo Moritasgus.
In Celtic polytheism, Sirona was a goddess worshipped predominantly in East Central Gaul and along the Danubian limes. A healing deity, she was associated with healing springs; her attributes were snakes and eggs. She was sometimes depicted with Apollo Grannus or Apollo Borvo. She was particularly worshipped by the Treveri in the Moselle Valley.
In Gallo-Roman religion, Loucetios was a Gallic god known from the Rhine-Moselle region, where he was identified with the Roman Mars. Scholars have interpreted his name to mean ‘lightning’. Mars Loucetius was worshipped alongside the goddess Nemetona.
In ancient Celtic religion, Maponos or Maponus is a god of youth known mainly in northern Britain but also in Gaul. In Roman Britain, he was equated with Apollo.
In Celtic mythology, Nantosuelta is the goddess of nature, the earth, fire, and fertility
In Gallo-Roman religion, Smertrios or Smertrius was a god worshipped in Gaul and Noricum. In Roman times he was equated with Mars. His name contains the same root as that of the goddess Rosmerta and may mean "The Purveyor" or "The Provider", a title rather than a true name. Smertulitanus may be a variant name for the same god.
In the localised Celtic polytheism practised in Great Britain, Sulis was a deity worshiped at the thermal spring of Bath. She was worshiped by the Romano-British as Sulis Minerva, whose votive objects and inscribed lead tablets suggest that she was conceived of both as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and as an effective agent of curses invoked by her votaries.
A nemeton was a sacred space of ancient Celtic religion. Nemeta appear to have been primarily situated in natural areas, often sacred groves. However, other evidence suggests that the word implied a wider variety of ritual spaces, such as shrines and temples. Evidence for nemeta consists chiefly of inscriptions and toponymy or place-names, which occur all across the Celtic world. Toponyms related to the word nemeton occur as far west as Galicia in the Iberian peninsula, as far north as Scotland, and as far east as central Turkey. The word is related to the name of the Nemetes tribe living by the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Constance in what is now Germany, and their goddess Nemetona.
In ancient Celtic religion, Sulevia was a goddess worshipped in Gaul, Britain, and Galicia, very often in the plural forms Suleviae or (dative) Sule(v)is. Dedications to Sulevia(e) are attested in about forty inscriptions, distributed quite widely in the Celtic world, but with particular concentrations in Noricum, among the Helvetii, along the Rhine, and also in Rome. Jufer and Luginbühl distinguish the Suleviae from another group of plural Celtic goddesses, the Matres, and interpret the name Suleviae as meaning "those who govern well". In the same vein, Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel connects Suleviae with Welsh hylyw 'leading (well)' and Breton helevez 'good behaviour'.
Gallo-Roman religion is a fusion of the traditional religious practices of the Gauls, who were originally Celtic speakers, and the Roman and Hellenistic religions introduced to the region under Roman Imperial rule. It was the result of selective acculturation.
Icovellauna was a Celtic goddess worshiped in Gaul. Her places of worship included an octagonal temple at Le Sablon in Metz, originally built over a spring, from which five inscriptions dedicated to her have been recovered, and Trier, where Icovellauna was honored in an inscription in the Altbachtal temple complex. Both of these places lie in the valley of the river Moselle of eastern Gaul in what are now Lorraine in France and Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. One such inscription was, somewhat unusually, inscribed on a copper tablet in Roman cursive letters.
Visucius was a Gallo-Roman god, usually identified with Mercury. He was worshipped primarily in the east of Gaul, around Trier and on the Rhine; his name is recorded on about ten dedicatory inscriptions. One such inscription has also been found in Bordeaux. Visucius is, along with Gebrinius and Cissonius, among the most common indigenous epithets of the Gaulish Mercury.
Lenus was a Celtic healing god worshipped mainly in eastern Gaul, where he was almost always identified with the Roman god Mars.
Ritona is a Celtic goddess chiefly venerated in the land of the Treveri in what is now Germany. Her cult is attested at Pachten and at Trier, where she "had a carefully built little temple" in the Altbachtal complex. Ritona's temple was one of several in the Altbachtal to include exedrae and courtyards that may have been used to prepare ritual banquets and/or to place offerings. At Pachten her temple also had a theatre, presumably used for performances of a religious nature.
Intarabus was a Gaulish god in the pantheon of the Treveri and some neighbouring peoples. His name is known from nine inscriptions from a relatively compact area in what are now Belgium, Luxembourg, western Germany and eastern France. He may have been the tutelary deity of one of the three pagi (subdivisions) of the Treveri. In most cases, Intarabus is invoked alone – without any synthesis to a Roman deity, and without accompanying female deities. However, one inscription invokes him as Mars Intarabus, noting that a fanum and simulacrum of this god had been restored at Trier. Meanwhile, another inscription from Mackwiller in Alsace gives Intarabus the epithet Narius. An inscription at Ernzen in Germany has his name as [In]tarabus, while another from Foy-Noville, invokes Entarabus in conjunction with the Genius Ollodagus.
The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon of deities comparable to others in Indo-European religion, each linked to aspects of life and the natural world. Epona was an exception and retained without association with any Roman deity. By a process of syncretism, after the Roman conquest of Celtic areas, most of these became associated with their Roman equivalents, and their worship continued until Christianization. Pre-Roman Celtic art produced few images of deities, and these are hard to identify, lacking inscriptions, but in the post-conquest period many more images were made, some with inscriptions naming the deity. Most of the specific information we have therefore comes from Latin writers and the archaeology of the post-conquest period. More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization.
Sianna or Stanna is a Romano-Celtic goddess from Roman Gaul, attested epigraphically from Vesunna, who is closely related to the Roman goddess Diana. The goddess Sianna is attested by an inscription composed of five fragments discovered in the buildings of the Vieilles Casernes or ‘old barracks’ in Périgueux (Dordogne), in the ancient territory of the Petrocorii, where she is partnered with the god Telo. By comparison of the various fragments, the suggested restoration is certain, except for the end of the first line and the beginning of the second line: Deo Telo et deae Stannae, solo A(uli) Pomp(eii) Antiqui, Per…ius, Silvani fil(ius) Bassus, c(urator) c(ivium) r(omanorum), consaeptum omne circa templum et basilicas duas, cum ceteris ornamentis ac munimentis, dat, which Noémie Beck translates as, ‘To the god Telo and to the goddess Stanna, Per[…]ius Bassus, son of Silvanus, curator of the Roman citizens, offers, at his own expense, this entire wall erected around their temple on the land of Aulus Pompeius Antiquus, and these two basilicas with the other embellishments and accessories’. This inscription is of great interest, for it mentions the existence of a temple dedicated to Telo and Stanna. The dedicator Per[…]rius Bassus was a Roman citizen and held official functions. He was a curator, which means he had been appointed by the emperor to manage and supervise the finances of the city. He offered a wall, two basilicas, ornaments and accessories extending and embellishing the sanctuary, which was built on the property of the Roman citizen Aulus Pompeius Antiquus. Sianna and Vesunna are two goddesses from the town of Périgueux in the territory of the Petrocorii.
