The gods: epigraphic and iconographic testimonies

Gods were distinguished from each other by the function they performed within a scope of competence that was acknowledged by part of the community that worshipped them. Yet, in most cases, little is known of such divine functions because divinities are known almost exclusively by the names recorded in the inscriptions.

The literature on Indo-European gods in Hispania is minimal. Strabo (3.3.7) states that the peoples of the north sacrificed hecatombs of men and horses to a war god he identifies with the Greek Ares. It is probably the same deity that was interpreted as Mars in various Latin inscriptions, such as the one found in Collado Villalba, Madrid, dedicated to Marti Magno by a Cantabrian (C7L II 3061, 5870a). Mention has already been made of the passage from Strabo (3.4.16) referring to the atheism of the Gallacians and the nameless god worshipped by the Celtiberians.

Recent research on the indigenous theonyms recorded in inscriptions seems to endorse, on the one hand, the individualization of landscape elements where the divinity manifests itself, and, on the other, the topographical bond of most theonyms (Bandua Longohrigu surely refers to Longroiva, the site of the inscription; Olivares Pedreno 2002: 249). The peoples from Celtic Hispania do not seem to have worshipped natural powers directly.

A similar process of divinization and personalization regarding a specific animal species is attested by a tombstone consecrated to Deis Equeunu(bos), that is, “equine gods”, in Pola de Gordon, Leon, on a mountain overlooking the main road from Leon to Oviedo. Although there is no solid base for an approximation to the personality of the Dei Equeunui, their “equine” character or their association with horses seems evident. The horse, together with the tree, as we have already seen, is predominant in the iconography of the remarkable stelae of the Cantabrian Vadinienses.

The cultural geography of the Hispanic Indo-European pantheon allows several levels of differentiation. First of all are those gods worshipped in ancient Celtica, such as Lugus, the Matres or Epona. Lugus seems to be a deity worshipped in the mountains of Perialba de Villastar (Teruel), a great “border” sanctuary between Celtiberia and the eastern Iberian world, with new Latin rock inscriptions mentioning the god Cornutus Cordonus (Beltran Lloris et al.

A series of gods are documented mostly in the west of the peninsula (Olivares Pedrerio 2002; Prosper 2002). The most common group is formed by the four names Bandua (or Bandis), Cosus, Nahia and Reva, addressed with various epithets, which probably document the emergence of federative deities and deities protecting the territory. But the best-documented Lusitanian deities are Endovellicus and Ataecina (Cardim Ribeiro 2002). The sanctuary of the former (who seems to be related to Vaelicus, worshipped by the Vettones) is in San Miguel da Mota (Alardoal, Alto Alentejo), and recent excavations confirm the prominently Romanized nature of his worship. There are more than sixty inscriptions with his names (and another twenty are probably related), which makes him one of the best-documented gods in the western provinces of the Roman Empire.

Nearly forty inscriptions mention Ataecina, fifteen in the sanctuary of El Trampal, in Alcuescar (Caceres). Some include the epithet Turohrigensis, a city in Celtic Beturia (Pliny Naturalis historia [Natural History] 3.14), from which her cult extended to Sardinia or Noricum. She is mentioned in some execratory inscriptions, and she was assimilated with Proserpina, which suggests that she was an infernal deity. There are up to fifteen different graphic variants of the name of this goddess (Attaecina, Attaegina, Attegina, Atacina, Ataecina, Addaecina, Adaegina, Adegina, Adecina, etc.), reflecting the difficulty in transcribing sounds of the indigenous languages in Latin letters.

In inscriptions such as those from Lamas de Moledo and Arroyo de la Luz (Caceres) the text in the Lusitanian language was preceded by the names of the scribes and the verb in Latin: Ambatus scripsit, Rufinus et Tiro scripserunt, respectively.

Unlike the Iberian areas or Gaul, iconic evidence for the Romano-Celtic divinities of Celtic Hispania is scarce (Alfaye Villa 2011, 67-103). This undoubtedly reflects a particular perception of divinity by Celtic populations, namely that recorded in literary passages such as that of Diodorus Siculus (22.9.4) who noted the hilarity of Brennus, the Gaulish chieftain, as he beheld the anthropomorphic images of the gods in Delphi while pillaging the sanctuary in 280 BCE. Tacitus (Germania 9.3) noted a similar attitude among the Germans, who did not think it appropriate for the majestic gods to be represented in human form and enclosed between walls.

The rarity of divine iconography in Celtiberia has been re-examined, and certain images traditionally ascribed to the divine have been reinterpreted, such as one previously assumed to have depicted Cernunnos (Alfaye Villa 2011). Some images portray horned gods, like those from Candelario (Salamanca), Lourizan (Pontevedra), or the three-headed god from Montemayor (Salamanca) (Olivares Pedrerio 2002; 257), representative of a highly characteristic motif encountered in various parts of Gaul.

The other iconographic variant, which is much more classicist, portrays ancestral deities in the garb of Hellenistic divinities. Such is the case of the god Bandua Araugelensis, represented on a sacrificial bowl in the Museum of Badajoz, with the characteristic iconography of Tutela or the Genius Loci. The same association between a deity with an indigenous theonym and a classical iconography is visible on the sacrificial bowl of Otanes, Cantabria. Here, Salus Vmeritana, who was probably a female deity associated with water, is represented by the conventional figure of a nymph and by the assimilation to the Roman Salus. Finally, the sanctuary of the “Fonte do fdolo” from Braga also portrays Tongus Nabiagus with classical attributes if we consider it as a standing figure holding a cornucopia.