Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/58

Rh Luxeuil; and Aventia in the territory of the Helvetii from whom Aventicum derives its name. There is also a goddess called Naria Nousantia mentioned on an inscription at Grissach, near Landeron, canton Neuenburg. The inscription is on a votive tablet set up by a certain T. Frontinus Hibernus. There is also an inscription at Saint-Marcel-lez-Chalon, dép. Saône-et-Loire to a local goddess called Temusio, and one at Saarburg in Lorraine to Nantosvelta, who is named along with a god Sucellus.

4. The Remainder of Transalpine Gaul.—In dealing with the west and north-west of Gaul we cannot but be struck by the great scarcity of names of goddesses from these districts. This is due, we may be sure, not to any absence of goddesses but to the slight extent to which the Gallo-Roman fashion of setting up votive tablets had penetrated to these regions. It is to be noted that in the neighbourhood of Cherbourg the goddesses of cross-roads (Quadriviæ) were objects of worship, but we have no evidence of the worship of Matres or Matronæ in these districts. There is a solitary inscription to a spring-goddess Acionna at Fleuri, near Orleans, where we have the words Aug(ustae) Acionnae sacrum. At Périgueux a goddess Stanna, perhaps a spring-goddess of the Petrucorii, is mentioned on three inscriptions in conjunction with a god Telo, the spring-god of Tolon, now Le Toulon, near Périgueux, dép. Dordogne. This name Telo may possibly underlie the name of Toulon-sur-Mer (Telo Martins), and the place-name Telonnum, a town of the Aeduans, Toulon-sur-Arroux, near Autun, dép. Saône-et-Loire, arr. Charolles, and also the present commune called Lipostey, dép. Landes, arr. de Marsan. The root of Stanna is not improbably sta-, to stand, and may have been originally given to the earth-goddess as ‘the abiding one.’ Another goddess of the southern area of Gaul, whose distinctive name was generally omitted, was Divona or Dēvona, a name which means simply ‘the goddess.’ The name occurs as that of the spring ‘Fontaine des Chartreux’ in Cahors, dép. Lot, and then as that of Cahors itself. Divona is