Artaius
Artaius is a Celtic epithet[1] applied to the Roman god Mercury during the Romano-Celtic period. It is known from a single inscription from Beaucroissant in the Isère:
- MERCVRIO
- AVG ARTAIO
- SACR
- SEX GEMINIVS
- CVPITVS
- EX VOTO[2]
- "To the august Mercury Artaius, Sextus Geminius Cupitus (has dedicated this) sacred (stone) in fulfillment of a vow."
In Gaulish, the word artos means ‘bear’, and artaios would have been a derivative[1] (meaning something like ‘ursine’). Miranda Green considers Mercury Artaius to have been a bear-god.[3] It is also possible that Artaius is derived from a place name (so that, as an "Artaian Mercury", he would only indirectly have any association with bears - if at all) - the inscription above was discovered at a location that was once called Artay and there is a similarly named town, Artaix, in Saône-et-Loire.[4]
References
- ^ a b Xavier Delamarre (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Paris: Editions Errance, p.56
- ^ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XII: 2199.
- ^ Miranda Green (2004). The gods of the Celts. Sparkford, UK: Sutton Publishing, p.174.
- ^ Longnon, Auguste, Les noms de lieu de la France, Paris, 1920, p. 114.
Curiosity
Artaius is also an Italian folk-prog metal band.