- Chapter Twenty-Five -
Figure 15.Il Bronze group of Romano-Celtic date depicting Apollo and Sirona; the
goddess's arm is encircled by a snake; Malain, Burgundy. (Illustrator: Paul Jenkins.)
was the resident spirit. Examples inch/de Sequana at Fontes Sequanae (Figure 25.13)
(Deyts 1985); Nodens at Lydney on tlie river Severn (Wheeler 1932) and Sulis at Bath
(Cunliffe and Davenport 1985). Lenus Mars was a Treveran god, with major sanctu-
aries at Trier itself, at Mohn and Pommern (Wightman 1970: 208-17). But he was
worshipped far away from his homeland, at Caerwent in Gwent and at Chedworth
in Gloucestershire (Goodburn 1972: pi. 10; Collingwood and Wright 1965: 309).
More localized still were the numerous obscure deities who are perhaps mentioned
on only one or two dedications and who were apparently venerated solely by the
inhabitants of one small settlement (Figure 25.14), or at the site of a particular spring
or mountain. Such was Souconna, the spirit of the river Saone at Chalon (Green
1992a: 196), Vindonnus at Essarois (Thevenot 1968: 110-12) or Fagus ('Beech Tree')
in the Pyrenees (CIL XIII, 223: 224).
CONCLUSION
One of the dangers of a survey such as this is the unwitting presentation of a picture
which can assume a timeless continuum, spanning nearly a millennium. This is not
the intention, but in part is the inevitable result of studying a period which is essen-
tially prehistoric, where chronology is often imprecise, especially where iconography
is concerned. Clearly, it is possible to make distinctions between religious behaviour