Curious to see Roman deities addressed in Gaulish. I wonder how that happened? The article doesn't explain it.
Hopefully this finding will contribute a little in our understanding of Gaulish.
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Ah, I can help here! Latin in the western provinces of the Empire never replaced the native languages, but co-existed alongside it. In addition, Romans regarded all (or most) deities as the same gods, just worshipped under different names - the interpretatio romana. So the worldview propagated by Roman religion was that the Celtic god of war and the Roman god of war were the same being, just worshipped under different names.
This led to traditional Celtic gods of war like Lenus being worshipped as Mars, Mars being worshipped as 'Mars Lenus', and Romans worshipping traditional Celtic gods of war - and to the Roman worldview, and the worldview they encouraged amongst the provincials, these were all the same essential respectable act.
So while the people here were speaking their own traditional language of Gaulish, 'Mars' was just a synonym to them for the native god they were worshipping (or vice-versa, if you prefer). Possibly used because curse tablets were a Graeco-Roman religious tradition, and it may have felt more 'natural' to refer to the god being requested in the Roman way, since they were using a Roman rite?
Not really surprising since Bretagne was basically Celtic for centuries. The local dialect is very similar to Welsh