Loucetios
{{Short description|Gallic deity identified with Mars}}
{{distinguish|Lucretius}}
File:Autel dédié à Mars Loucetios-Musée archéologique de Strasbourg.jpg.]]
In Gallo-Roman religion, Loucetios (Latinized as Leucetius) was a Gallic god known from the Rhine-Moselle region, where he was identified with the Roman Mars. Scholars have interpreted his name to mean ‘lightning’.{{cite book |author=Xavier Delamarre |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedela00dela |title=Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise |publisher=Editions Errance |year=2003 |isbn=9782877722377 |edition=2nd |location=Paris |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedela00dela/page/n197 199] |url-access=limited}} Mars Loucetius was worshipped alongside the goddess Nemetona.{{cite book|author=Edith Mary Wightman |title=Roman Trier and the Treveri |year=1970 |publisher=Rupert Hart Davis |location=London, England |page=219}}
Name and etymology
The name Loucetios derives from a Celtic stem *lowk-et-, meaning 'flash of lightning, thunderbolt' (cf. Old Irich lóchet), itself from the root *lowk- ('bright, light'; cf. Middle Irish luach 'glowing light', Middle Welsh llug 'eyesight, perception'). It is the source of the place name Luzech, attested as Luzechium in 1326 CE.{{Sfn|Delamarre|2003|p=200}}
The name may be a reference to either a Celtic common metaphor for battles as thunderstorms (cf. Old Irish torannchless, the 'thunder feat'), or else the divine aura of the hero (the lúan of Cú Chulainn).{{cite encyclopedia |year=2006 |title=Loucetius |encyclopedia=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-Clio |editor=John Koch |page=1192 |author=Helmut Birkhan}} It is presumably analogous to Oscan Loucetius ‘light-bringer’, an epithet of Jupiter.{{cite encyclopedia|year=1997|title=Loucetios|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture|publisher=Taylor & Francis|page=513|author=J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams}}
Inscriptions and shrines
About a dozen inscriptions in honour of Mars Loucetius have been recovered, mainly from eastern Gaul, with a particular concentration among the Vangiones and Aresaces (two Rhenish tribes). Inscriptions to him have also been found at Bath and Angers;{{cite book|author=Nicole Jufer & Thierry Luginbühl |year=2001 |title=Les dieux gaulois : répertoire des noms de divinités celtiques connus par l'épigraphie, les textes antiques et la toponymie |publisher=Editions Errance |location=Paris |pages=48–49}} The sites listed for Loucetius/Leucetius are Strasbourg, Worms, Eisenberg, Groß-Gerau, Klein-Winternheim, Frauenstein, Großkrotzenburg, Marienborn, Angers, and Bath. the altar at Bath specifies that it was dedicated by a citizen of the Treveri.RIB 1, 140.
Inscriptions often invoke Mars Loucetius together with Victoria or Nemetona (or both, in the case of the Eisenberg inscriptionAE 2007, 1044.). Edith Mary Wightman considers this pair “closely similar to if not identical with, Lenus and Ancamna”, who are known chiefly from the territory of the Treveri adjacent to those of the Aresaces and Vangiones.
Four of the inscriptions to Mars Loucetius are also dedicated IN H(onorem) D(omūs) D(ivinae),These are the inscriptions at Groß-Gerau (AE 1991, 1272), Großkrotzenburg (CIL XIII: 7412), Worms (CIL XIII: 6221), and Eisenberg (AE 2007, 1044). ‘in honour of the divine house’ (i.e. the imperial family).
Wightman further suggests that the shrine of Mars Loucetius at Klein-Winternheim, south of Mainz, was “a central one for the Aresaces”, the ancient inhabitants of the Mainz-Bingen area.
==Modern literature==
In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Leucotios{{sic}} appears in chapter three, during Shadow's (the main character) dream of forgotten gods. Gaiman's Leucotios is described as a “man with ... white hair, with a necklace of teeth about his neck, holding a drum”.{{cite book|author=Neil Gaiman |title=American Gods |url=https://archive.org/details/americangodsnove00gaim_041 |url-access=limited |year=2001 |publisher=HarperTorch |location=New York, NY |page=[https://archive.org/details/americangodsnove00gaim_041/page/n71 58]}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book|last=Delamarre|first=Xavier|title=Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental|year=2003|publisher=Errance|isbn=9782877723695|author-link=Xavier Delamarre}}
{{Celtic mythology (ancient)}}