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Olloudius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olloudios, latinized as Olludius, is a Celtic god known from three inscriptions, one reconstructed,[a] in which he is equated with Mars, the Roman god of war. One of these inscriptions was found at the village of Bisley, Gloucestershire,[1] in the Cotswolds, and the other two in one of the southernmost parts of Gaul, around the former Greek colony of Antipolis (Antibes) on the Mediterranean coast of present-day France.

Like some of the other instantiations of Mars with a Celtic epithet in Britain and Gaul, Olloudios belongs to an important group of Celtic deities who are invoked as protectors, healers, and therefore promoters of wellbeing.[2]

Name and epigraphy

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The common interpretation of the name Olloudios is "[he of the] Big Tree",[3] from *Ollo-uidius, compounded of Gaulish ollos, 'large', and uidu-, 'tree; woodland, forest'.[4] The folklorist and archaeologist E. M. Clifford suggested that the British Olludius might be associated with local traditions of the Maypole in Gloucestershire.[5]

The name first appears in a Latin inscription of southern Gaul in a dedication "to Mars Olloudios" (Marti Olloudio) made by a Roman woman named Vigilia Metia in fulfillment of a vow.[6] Maxime Joseph has expressed caution in extrapolating far-flung cultivation of a specific Celtic deity named Olloudios based on two instances of Mars with a similar epithet, latinized as Olludius in Britain, widely separated by time period and distance.[6] The etymology may express a generally perceived function or quality of Mars among the Celts without implying that a particular deity's organized cultus was disseminated from one place to another.[6]

The third inscription appears on a rough-hewn stone found in Vallauris, in the vicinity of Antibes, the findspot of Vigilia Metia's votum.[7] Along with geographical proximity, the desire to collate evidence for a recurring Celtic god Olloudios seems to have influenced the reconstruction of this inscription, -loudio, by expanding the illegible portion as [Marti Ol]loudio – a conjecture regarded by André Chastagnol as "dicey"[8] but reflected in the pertinent entry in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie.[5]

Iconography

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The one extant image labelled as Mars Olludius comes from a pair of reliefs found at the British site, in the territory of the Dobunni.[2] The two are about the same size, 15" wide, 5" thick, differing slightly in height, with the Olludius stone two inches taller than its 18" companion (overall, 38.1 × 50.8 × 12.7 cm). Each relief depicts a male figure in a frontal stance, framed by the outline of a distyle temple, with a hip-high altar at his right.[9]

The figure inscribed "to Mars Olludius" extends a patera (offering plate) over the altar and holds a cornucopia, ordinarily in Roman art attributes of the Genius.[10] The god exhibits no military attributes.[2] He is clad in a long tunic that covers his knees, boots that reach mid-calf, and an intricately folded cloak showing a herringbone pattern on the drape over the left arm.[9][1] Given Mars' role as a guardian, specifically of agriculture in early Roman religion, Olludius may function as a sort of genius loci.[11]

The Olludius image was paired with another male figure, apparently the work of the same craftsman, who signed this second image as Juventinus.[12] The person making the dedication is named Gulioep̣ius or Culioetius.[12] The figure is often identified as Mars because he is armoured with shield, spear, and sword.[2][1] The triple-crested helmet he wears resembles the shape, known also from Celtic coins,[citation needed] of a jester's cap.[13] A fruitful cornucopia rests upright on the altar next to him. An impression of some scholars,[14] not readily apparent from the RIB sketches of the reliefs,[9] is that both images show a double cornucopia – a cornucopia with two mouths opening from a single tip. The inscription Deo Rom[u]lo ("to the god Romulus") indicates that the figure is Rome's mythic founder in his deified form, unexpectedly but not uniquely depicted as Mars.[15][16] The two figures would not be readily identifiable as a Celtic Mars and Romulus on the basis of this iconography without the inscriptions, and the pair serve as examples of how concepts of deity were reassembled through local religious traditions.[17][16]

Notes

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  1. ↑ The three are:
    • Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VII 73 (RIB 131), Marti Olludio
    • CIL XII 166 (Dessau 4580), Vigilia Metia Massae filia Marti Olloudio VSLM
    • CIL XII 167 (ILN II 81), reconstructed as [Marti Ol]loudio.

References

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  1. 1 2 3 Croxford 2016, p. 612.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Green 1997, p. 166.
  3. ↑ Birley 1986, p. 48, citing Ross (1967), p.172.
  4. ↑ Delamarre 2003, pp. 241, 319.
  5. 1 2 Clifford 1944, p. 126.
  6. 1 2 3 Joseph 2021, p. 868.
  7. ↑ Joseph 2021, p. 868, especially n. 168.
  8. ↑ Joseph 2021, p. 868, n. 168; très aléatoire.
  9. 1 2 3 Collingwood & Wright 1965, pp. 39–40.
  10. ↑ Croxford 2016, pp. 612–613.
  11. ↑ Ross 1967, pp. 240, 257.
  12. 1 2 Collingwood & Wright 1965, p. 40.
  13. ↑ Ross 1967, p. 239, citing Toynbee.
  14. ↑ Ross 1967, pp. 239–240.
  15. ↑ Ross 1967, p. 240.
  16. 1 2 Croxford 2016, p. 613.
  17. ↑ Ross 1967, p. 257.

Bibliography

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  • Birley, Eric (1986). "The Deities of Roman Britain". Aufsteig und Niedgergang der Römischen Welt. II.18.1: 3–112.
  • Collingwood, R.G.; Wright, R.P. (1965). The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Vol. I: Inscriptions on Stone. Clarendon Press.
  • Croxford, Ben (2016). "Art in Roman Britain". In Millett, Martin; Revell, Louise; Moore, Alison (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain. Oxford Handbooks (Oxford Academic ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 599–618. Retrieved 31 July 2026.
  • Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (in French) (2nd ed.). Errance.
  • Green, Miranda J. (1986). "The Iconography and Archaeology of Romano-British Religion". Aufsteig und Niedgergang der Römischen Welt. II.18.1: 113–162.
  • Green, Miranda (1997). Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. Thames and Hudson. p. 166.
  • Ross, Anne (1967). Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition (rev. 1992 ed.). Constable.
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