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Gaulish Dis Pater

Caesar and Gaulish Dis Pater

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Julius Caesar

The Commentaries on the Gallic War is Caesar's first-hand account of the Gallic Wars (58-50 BCE), written during or shortly after those wars. His first-hand acquantaince with the Gauls (as well as his access to earlier, now-lost, works on the Celts) makes the work an invaluable source for Gaulish religion.[1]: 166–167  In Book 6 of the Commentaries, Caesar says the following:

Galli se omnes ab Dite patre prognatos praedicant idque ab druidibus proditum dicunt. Ob eam causam spatia omnis temporis non numero dierum sed noctium finiunt; dies natales et mensum et annorum initia sic observant ut noctem dies subsequatur.[2]

The Gauls affirm that they are all descended from a common father, Dis Pater, and say that this is the tradition of the Druids. For that reason they determine all periods of time by the number, not of days, but of nights, and in their observance of birthdays and the beginnings of months and years day follows night.[3]

Caesar refers to the Gaulish god who the Celts claimed descendance from under the name of a Roman god, Dis Pater. Such a practice, of referring to foreign deities under Roman names, was called by Tacitus the interpretatio romana (Roman interpretation). A foreign god was equated with a Roman one on the basis of their similarity, however superficial; usually it was sufficient that the gods have one sphere of influence in common.[1]: 203–204  The practice was fairly flexible in the Celtic regions, where one Celtic god could have multiple Roman equivalents, and one Roman god many Celtic equivalents.[4]: 156  In Roman accounts of Celtic or Germanic religion, the application of interpretatio romana is the rule. Nonetheless, Caesar's application of this device in one of the most detailed surviving accounts of Celtic religion has caused much scholarly headache (compare, for example, the difficulty of identifying Caesar's Gaulish Mercury).[1]: 204–205 

An excursus on the origin of Celtic people is a frequent feature of classical ethnographies of the Celts. However, classical ethnographies of barbarian peoples prior to Caesar, as a rule, gave Greek mythological explanations of their origins.[5]: 73–76  Thus, Timaeus explains the Galatians as descendants of Galates, a son of Polyphemus, and Parthenius explains the Celts as descendants of Keltus, a son of Heracles (among many other such traditions).[6]: 62–63  Caesar broke with this tradition in reproducing, and crediting, a native Celtic tradition about their own origins.[1]: 209–210 [5]: 76 

[Para on date-keeping]

Dis Pater in Rome and in the Celtic provinces

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Dis Pater was the Roman god of the underworld and of prosperity. Dis Pater seems to have been invented for the Tarentine Games (a roughly centennial Roman religious celebration, begun in 249 BCE) as a Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pluto (better known as Hades). As even the Romans acknowledged, the name Dis (Latin for "rich") is a direct translation of the Greek name Pluto (from ploûtos, "riches"). Outside of the Tarentine Games, Dis Pater played only a minor part in Roman religion.[7]: 310–312  Only two identifiable images of him have survived.[8] Dis Pater appears most prominently in Latin literature, where he takes the place that Pluto/Hades occupied in Greek literature.[7]: 312 

The archaeological evidence for the worship of Dis Pater in the Celtic provinces is very limited. If Gaulish Dis Pater was as important as Caesar made out, the interpretatio Caesar offers cannot have been much adopted.[9]: 81–82  In any case, this evidence is of little help in identifying Gaulish Dis Pater.[1]: 210  An inscription from Bregenz perhaps identifies the Celtic god Smertrios with Dis Pater. However, the reconstruction is not very certain,[a] and Smertrios is more usually identified with Mars.[11] One heterodox aspect of Dis Pater's cult in the Western provinces (and particularly in Germania Superior) is that he is frequently paired with a goddess Erecura,[b] rather than with Proserpina, as he was in Rome. However, as her cult was concentrated in a non-Celtic province, it probably shines no light on Gaulish religion.[6]: 63 

Candidates

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Sucellus

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Statue of Sucellus at the National Archaeological Museum, France

Sucellus is a Celtic god whose function is uncertain.[13]: 66 [c] Sucellus is best known from his iconography, in which he is depicted with a mallet and olla. His iconographic type (which first appears in the Roman era) is one of the best represented in the Celtic pantheon, with over 400 surviving representations.[13]: 67 [14]: 822  Sucellus's primary interpretatio romana seems to have been with Silvanus, Roman god of the countryside. In Gallo-Roman iconography, Silvanus occasionally borrows the mallet and olla of Sucellus.[13]: 69  Sucellus's iconography borrows from classical models, particularly those of the Roman god Jupiter and the Greek gods Pluto and Charon.[13]: 71–73 

[9]: 95 

Cernunnos

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Further information: Cernunnos § Cernunnos and interpretatio romana

[15] [16]

Taranis

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Further information: Taranis § Scholia

Taranis was a Celtic thunder god, and is one of the few Celtic gods known by his native name in classical literature, referenced as such in Lucan's epic poem Pharsalia.[17]: 298  The poem Pharsalia was a popular Latin school text in antiquity and the medieval period, which created a demand for commentaries and scholia, explicating grammatical and content-related difficulties in the work. The best known such scholia is the Commenta Bernensia, a set of notes to the poem preserved in an 11th century CE manuscript, and with layers between the 4th and 9th centuries CE.[17]: 312–313  The Commenta Bernensia offers interpretatios of the Celtic deities referenced by Esus, in order to gloss them for the reader. It offers two possible interpretatios for Taranis (noting that the sources before its author gave contradictory information), one as Jupiter and one as Dis Pater.[17]: 324 

The commentaries on Lucan are the only other set of classical texts to mention Dis Pater in relation to Celtic religion.[1]: 210 [d] it is difficult to evaluate the origin and significance of the scholia's equation of Taranis with Dis Pater. The equation with Jupiter is common in inscriptions, and the parallel between Taranis and Jupiter's role as thunder gods is clear.[17]: 324  On the other hand, Dis was associated in Latin literature with the night sky and night thunderstorms. Statius, for example, refers to Dis Pater as the "thunderer of the underworld" (Thebiad, 11, 209).[19]: 24  Taranis is sometimes identified with the Celtic wheel god (a Celtic god equated with Jupiter, who is only known from Celtic religious iconography); attempts have been made to connect Taranis with Gaulish Dis Pater through features of this wheel god.[20]: 80 [e]

Other hypotheses

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God of 37 T 2 Strabon Geogr. 3, 4,16

Teutates sometimes identified with Dis Pater. (Vgl. E. Linckenheld, a.a.O., S. 83—85, und Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule, II, S. 121.).[9]: 49 

Connection with Old Irish dith ("death, destruction").[9]: 81 

Gaulish Dis Pater and Insular mythology

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Irish Donn[21]

Irish Dagda

de Vries compares to Welsh Beli Mawr.[9]: 81 

Notes

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  1. ^ An altar (AE 1950, 98) found in the church in Großbuch, Klagenfurt, Germany gives a votive inscription to a god; the only portion of this god's name that has clearly survived is ]TI SMER[. Robert Egger proposed to reconstruct this name as [Di]ti Smer[trio] ("Dis Smertrios"), a proposal which has been followed by some. However, Józef Zając [pl] proposed to reconstruct it [Mar]ti Smer[trio] ("Mars Smertrios").[10]
  2. ^ See the epigraphic evidence collected in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae; the sculpture of Dis Pater and Erecura from Sulzbach (CIL XIII, 6322); and (as a unique example of her presence in Rome) the banquet painting from the Hypogeum of Vibia.[7]: 313 [12]
  3. ^ Hypotheses include a sky, an underworld god, a god of prosperity, a god of war, an astral god.[13]: 66 
  4. ^ Two other important early commentaries on Lucan, the contemporary Adnotationes super Lucanum and the slightly later Glossen ad Lucan, offer the interpretatio of Taranis as Dis Pater (without the Commenta's accompanying interpretatio as Jupiter).[17]: 331, 334  The medieval Latin lexicographer Papias also mentions Taranis in a gloss of the god's name, giving the same interpretatio of him as Dis Pater. Papias likely relies on this commentary tradition to Lucan, and has no independent source value.[18]: 531–532 
  5. ^ Fritz Heichelheim cited the wheel god of Séguret, who has a snake coiled behind him, as evidence of the chthonic associations of Taranis. Pierre Lambrechts took the Jupiter Columns (monuments from Germania sometimes crowned equestrian depictions of the wheel god) as showing Taranis's dominion over both the underworld and overworld.[20]: 80 

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Hofeneder, Andreas (2005). Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Vol. 1. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  2. ^ Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 6,18.
  3. ^ Translation adapted from Edwards, H. J. (1917). Caesar: The Gallic War. Loeb Classical Library. Vol. 72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 343.
  4. ^ Webster, Jane (1995). "Interpretatio: Roman Word Power and the Celtic Gods". Britannia. 26: 153–161. JSTOR 526874.
  5. ^ a b Bickerman, Elias J. (1952). "Origines Gentium". Classical Philology. 47 (2): 65–81. JSTOR 267375.
  6. ^ a b Maier, Bernhard (2001). Die Religion der Kelten: Götter – Mythen – Weltbild. München: C. H. Beck.
  7. ^ a b c Wissowa, Georg (1912). Religion und Kultus der Römer (2nd ed.). Munchen: C. H. Beck.
  8. ^ Belloni, Gian Guido (1986). "Dis Pater". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Vol. III. Zurich / Munich: Artemis. p. 644.
  9. ^ a b c d e de Vries, Jan (1961). Keltische Religion. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
  10. ^ de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia; Hainzmann, Manfred (2020). "CF-Nor-107". Fontes epigraphici religionum Celticarum antiquarum. I: Provincia Noricum. Fasc.2: Die epigraphischen Testimonien. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 814–815.
  11. ^ Bauchhenß, Gerhard (1984). "Mars Smertrius". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Vol. II. Zurich / Munich: Artemis. pp. 575–576.
  12. ^ Le Glay, Marcel (1981). "Aeracura". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Vol. I. Zurich / Munich: Artemis. pp. 243–244.
  13. ^ a b c d e Boucher, Stéphanie (1976). "Sucellus = Dispater? Remarques sur la typologie et les fonctiens du dieu gaulois". Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. 54 (1): 66–77. doi:10.3406/rbph.1976.3077.
  14. ^ Nagy, Árpád M. "Sucellus". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Vol. VII. Zurich / Munich: Artemis. pp. 820–823.
  15. ^ Blázquez, José Maria (1988). "Cernunnos". Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Vol. 4. Zurich / Munich: Artemis. pp. 839–844.
  16. ^ Bober, Phyllis Pray (January 1951). "Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity". American Journal of Archaeology. 55 (1): 13–51. doi:10.2307/501179. JSTOR 501179.
  17. ^ a b c d e Hofeneder, Andreas (2008). Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Vol. 2. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  18. ^ Hofeneder, Andreas (2011). Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Vol. 3. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  19. ^ Hainzmann, Manfred (2002). "Taranis – Jupiter: Keltischer Donner und römischer Blitz". In Ternes, Charles Marie; Zinser, Hartmut (eds.). Dieux des Celtes – Götter der Kelten – Gods of the Celts. Études Luxembourgeoises d’histoire et de science des religions. Vol. 1. Luxemburg. pp. 19–38.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ^ a b Bauchhenß, Gerhard; Noelke, Peter (1981). Die Iupitersäulen in den germanischen Provinzen. Köln: Rheinland.
  21. ^ Meid, Wolfgang (1976). "Zur Etymologie des Wortes für 'Mensch' im Irischen". In Davies, Anna Morpurgo; Meid, Wolfgang (eds.). Studies in Greek, Italic, and Indo-European linguistics offered to Leonard R. Palmer on the occasion of his seventieth birthday,. Innsbruck: Universität Innsbruck. pp. 173–179.
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