- Chapter Twenty-Five -
elements: supernatural events; magical cauldrons of regeneration and plenty; beings
of superhuman size, strength and wisdom; a brilliantly portrayed Otherworld;
the potency of triads; supernatural animals, and the related phenomenon of shape-
changing between human and animal form (Green 1992a: 150-1; 1992b: 162-195).
A CELTIC PANTHEON?Leaving aside the separate and contentious issue of the vernacular mythology touched
on above, we may legitimately pose the question as to whether it is possible to discern
a hierarchy of Celtic divinities from the bewildering array of epigraphic dedications
and iconographical forms of pagan Celtic Europe with which we are presented.
Judging from frequency of occurrences and from distribution, it is possible to make
some assessment of the popularity of various god-types. At the top are deities
whose names and images appear widely and often throughout the Celtic world. These
include the sky-and sun-god, although certain aspects of his cult, such as his depic-
tion as a celestial horseman on the 'Jupiter columns' of eastern Gaul and the
Rhineland, may cluster in specific regions (Green 1991 a: 133-6). The mother-
goddesses and Epona likewise transcend tribal boundaries and appear to have been
venerated by many different communities. The cults associated with these deities not
only spanned wide areas but their worship percolated down from the highest to the
humblest echelons of society. For example, some of the Rhineland mother-goddesses
were invoked by high-ranking officials in the Roman army or civil magistrates, whilst
some Gaulish and British carvings of the goddesses were clearly commissioned by
groups of rural people or by a single family for veneration in private shrines.
Likewise, the 'Jupiter-Giant columns' set up in honour of the Celtic sky-god were the
result of corporate religious activity (Figure 25.11), but the small pipe-clay figurines
of the same god from Gaulish factories would have been purchased by individuals
who perhaps could not afford an altar or a bronze statuette (Green 1991a: 136).
Less universal than the major, pan-tribal cults were those which had specific
centres of popularity but which also occur sporadically elsewhere. The healers
Apollo and Sirona had an important temple at Hochscheid in the Moselle Basin and
were venerated particularly among the Treveri and the neighbouring Mediomatrici.
But the couple appears also in Burgundy, at Maiain (Figure 25.12), and Sirona was
worshipped as far apart as Brittany and Hungary (Marache 1979: 15; Schindler 1977:
33; Dehn 1941: lo4ff.; Szabo 1971: 66). Another important divine couple, Mercury
and Rosmerta, were prominent especially in central and eastern Gaul, but with a
cluster of British monuments among the Dobunni of Gloucestershire (Green 1992a:
180-I). Images of the antlered god occur mainly in eastern Gaul, appearing, for
instance, among the Burgundian tribes at such places as Beaune and Etang-sur-
Arroux (Esperandieu no. 2083; Thevenot 1968: 144-9) and among the Remi at Reims
(Esperandieu no. 3653). But the Santones of Saintes in Aquitaine in western Gaul also
venerated the antlered god (Esperandieu no. 1319) and his image is even known
among the Dobunni of western Britain, at Cirencester (Green 1986a: fig. 86).
Certain Celtic divinities were the focus of cults which were of major importance
but their veneration was centred upon a particular religious site of which the deity