The Religion of the Ancient Celts. J. A. MacCulloch
In the Isle of Skye, where, looking at names of prominent places alone, Norse derivatives are to Gaelic as 3 to 2, they are as 1 to 5 when names of insignificant places, untouched by Norse influence, are included.
Footnote 36: (return)
Rh[^y]s, CB4 241.
Footnote 37: (return)
D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 22.
Footnote 38: (return)
Bede, Eccl. Hist. i. 12.
Footnote 39: (return)
Adamnan, Vita S. Col.
Footnote 40: (return)
See p. 222.
Footnote 41: (return)
Dio Cass. lxxvi. 12; Cæsar, v. 14. See p. 223.
Footnote 42: (return)
Isidore, Etymol. ix. 2, 103; Rh[^y]s, CB 242–243; Cæsar, v. 14; Nicholson, ZCP in. 332.
Footnote 43: (return)
Tacitus, Agric. ii.
Footnote 44: (return)
If Celtæ is from qelo, "to raise," it may mean "the lofty," just as many savages call themselves "the men," par excellence. Rh[^y]s derives it from qel, "to slay," and gives it the sense of "warriors." See Holder, s.v.; Stokes, US 83. Galatæ is from gala (Irish gal), "bravery." Hence perhaps "warriors."
Footnote 45: (return)
"Galli" may be connected with "Galatæ," but D'Arbois denies this. For all these titles see his PH ii. 396 ff.
Footnote 46: (return)
Livy, v. 31 f.; D'Arbois, PH ii. 304, 391.
Footnote 47: (return)
Strabo, iv. 10. 3; Cæsar, i. 31, vii. 4; Frag. Hist. Græc. i. 437.
Footnote 48: (return)
Cæsar, ii. 4.
Footnote 49: (return)
Strabo, xii. 5. 1.
Footnote 50: (return)
Polybius, ii. 22.
Footnote 51: (return)
Cæsar, i. 2, 1–3.
Footnote 52: (return)
On the subject of Celtic unity see Jullian, "Du patriotisme gaulois," RC xxiii. 373.
CHAPTER III.
THE GODS OF GAUL AND THE CONTINENTAL CELTS.
The passage in which Cæsar sums up the Gaulish pantheon runs: "They worship chiefly the god Mercury; of him there are many symbols, and they regard him as the inventor of all the arts, as the guide of travellers, and as possessing great influence over bargains and commerce. After him they worship Apollo and Mars, Juppiter and Minerva. About these they hold much the same beliefs as other nations. Apollo heals diseases, Minerva teaches the elements of industry and the arts, Juppiter rules over the heavens, Mars directs war. … All the Gauls assert that they are descended from Dispater, their progenitor."53
As will be seen in this chapter, the Gauls had many other gods than these, while the Roman gods, by whose names Cæsar calls the Celtic divinities, probably only approximately corresponded to them in functions. As the Greeks called by the names of their own gods those of Egypt, Persia, and Babylonia, so the Romans identified Greek, Teutonic, and Celtic gods with theirs. The identification was seldom complete, and often extended only to one particular function or attribute. But, as in Gaul, it was often part of a state policy, and there the fusion of cults was intended to break the power of the Druids. The Gauls seem to have adopted Roman civilisation easily, and to have acquiesced in the process of assimilation of their divinities to those of their conquerors. Hence we have thousands of inscriptions in which a god is called by the name of the Roman deity to whom he was assimilated and by his own Celtic name—Jupiter Taranis, Apollo Grannus, etc. Or sometimes to the name of the Roman god is added a descriptive Celtic epithet or a word derived from a Celtic place-name. Again, since Augustus reinstated the cult of the Lares, with himself as chief Lar, the epithet Augustus was given to all gods to whom the character of the Lares could be ascribed, e.g. Belenos Augustus. Cults of local gods became cults of the genius of the place, coupled with the genius of the emperor. In some cases, however, the native name stands alone. The process was aided by art. Celtic gods are represented after Greco-Roman or Greco-Egyptian models. Sometimes these carry a native divine symbol, or, in a few cases, the type is purely native, e.g. that of Cernunnos. Thus the native paganism was largely transformed before Christianity appeared in Gaul. Many Roman gods were worshipped as such, not only by the Romans in Gaul, but by the Gauls, and we find there also traces of the Oriental cults affected by the Romans.54
There were probably in Gaul many local gods, tribal or otherwise, of roads and commerce, of the arts, of healing, etc., who, bearing different names, might easily be identified with each other or with Roman gods. Cæsar's Mercury, Mars, Minerva, etc., probably include many local Minervas, Mars, and Mercuries. There may, however, have been a few great gods common to all Gaul, universally worshipped,