- The Gods and the Supernatural -
kept secret, or that the resemblance with his own gods was so strong that he was
concerned to record this similarity? The first century AD Roman poet Lucan does
allude to three gods with Celtic names who were apparently encountered by Caesar's
army in southern Gaul in the first century Be (Pharsalia 1.444-6). These are Esus,
Taranis and Teutates, all of whom, states Lucan, demanded appeasement in the form
of human sacrifice. Lucan implies that these were important Gaulish divinities, but
this is not borne out by archaeological testimony. Taranis and Teutates each occur on
a handful of dedications (Figure 25.4) (Green 1982: 37-44; I986a: III; I992a: 209)
which are scattered within the Romano-Celtic world, and the name Esus appears only
once, on an early first-century AD monument in Paris (Esperandieu no. 3 I 34; Green
I992a: 93-4). All three names are descriptive: Taranis ('Thunderer') is tied to function;
Esus means 'Lord' or 'Master'; and Teutates probably refers to the divine leadership
of a tribe or tuath. Esus and Teutates are therefore titles rather than names.
Sporadic references to Celtic gods appear in the literature of the Romano-Celtic
period. Tertullian (Apologeticus XXIV.7) and Herodian (History of the Empire after
Marcus VIII.3.6) allude to the cult of Apollo Belenus in Noricum and north Italy, and
Ausonius alludes to sanctuaries dedicated to Belenus in Aquitaine in the fourth cen-
tury AD (Zwicker 1934-6: 105). Grannus is referred to by Dio Cassius (Historiae
LXXVII. 15.5) who speaks of the emperor Caracalla's unsuccessful attempts to find a
cure for his physical afflictions at the temples of Grannus, Aesculapius and Serapis.
Reference is made to Epona's cult by a number of sources, including Apuleius
(Metamorphoses IIl.27) and Minucius Felix (Octavianus XXVIII.7).
SO the classical literary sources are of very little use in establishing the identities
of Celtic gods and the nature of belief. Any detail concerning a Celtic pantheon must
be sought from the epigraphy and iconography of the Romano-Celtic world.
THE ROMANO-CELTIC TRADITION
Celtic religious expression is represented during the Roman period by two main
strands of material culture: epigraphy and iconography. Inscriptions give us the
names of deities; imagery demonstrates how they were perceived as physical
manifestations of the supernatural. One immediate problem lies in the fact that, very
frequently, an epigraphic dedication to a god occurs without any accompanying
image and vice versa. So it is usually impossible to marry images with their names or
names with their images. Moreover, there is often a discrepancy between the
ethnicity of a god as expressed by his name and by his appearance. Thus a being with
a Celtic name - such as Sequana - may look very classical, whilst a god with a Roman
name - Mars or Mercury, for instance - may be depicted in wholly native style.Epigraphy
The names of indigenous Celtic gods may contain Roman and native elements
or may be purely Celtic. Thus Mars and Mercury were frequently invoked with dif-
ferent Celtic surnames or epithets: Mars Lenus, worshipped among the Treveri, and
Mars Corotiacus, invoked in Suffolk, are just two of numerous examples (Wightman