- The Gods and the Supernatural -
displays the ubiquity and cult importance of animal symbolism. Some creatures
accompanied anthropomorphic images, presumably to demonstrate a particular
quality or feature associated with the god's character, just as occurs in classical
imagery. But there are indications that animals in Celtic religion achieved a status
denied them in the Mediterranean world. Some divinities - and Epona is a prime
example - are dependent upon animals for their iconographic and epigraphic identity.
Thus, Epona is always depicted riding on a mare or accompanied by horses.
Moreover, her name is philologically linked with epos, a Gaulish word for 'horse'.
She was the goddess of the craft of horse-breeding, and she was revered by cavalry-
men as a divine protectress of them and their animals. But she also possessed wider
responsibilities as a deity of fertility and general well-being (Figure 25.9). There was
even an underworld dimension to her cult (Green 1989: 10-16). Other, less widely
known goddesses enjoyed a similar affinity with beasts: Arduinna, the boar-deity of
the Ardennes Forest is one; Artio, bear-goddess of Muri in Switzerland, is another.
It is difficult to establish whether or not the animals themselves possessed divine
status; the likelihood is that they were sacred only inasmuch as they symbolized
certain features of a particular cult. But there is debate over the status of certain
creatures which appear in the iconography: monstrous animals, like the ram-horned
serpent and the triple-horned bull, may well have been worshipped as beings of
tremendous power, because of their hybrid or unnatural imagery. The triple-horned
bull is not associated with any particular anthropomorphic god, but the snake
Figure 25.9 Stone statuette of Epona; from the Romano-Gaulish town of Alesia, Burgundy.
First-second century AD. (Illustrator: Paul Jenkins.)