Hercules Magusanus

Altar for Hercules Magusanus from Bonn ( AE 1971, 282 ) depicting the god and the hellhound Cerberus

Hercules Magusanus (also Hercules Magusenus ) is the name of a Germanic god who was predominantly worshiped in Roman Lower Germany . He is considered the main deity of the Batavians with the function of a war deity or a warlike character.

Tradition and dissemination

Copy of the inscription CIL 13, 8705.

The name Magusanus or Magusenus appears on Roman consecration stones , a limestone statuette, arm rings and two coin issues of the Gaulish emperor Postumus minted at 260/1 . There is also a bronze statuette of Hercules, which was found in the temple area of ​​Empel together with a bronze plate with a dedication to Hercules Magusenus.

From 1989 to 1991 the temple area of ​​Empel was excavated. In the Gallo-Roman temple , which was built from the middle of the 1st century , the god was worshiped centrally and sacrifices were made to him. Other Hercules Magusanus cult sites in the Batavian settlement area were the temple in Elst and in Kessel near Oss .

The majority of the finds come from the Roman province of Germania inferior , the worship of the god by soldiers also outside is documented by an inscription each from Rome , Dacia and Scotland .

An inscription from Malburg ( Gelderland ) names him together with the Germanic goddess Haeva .

According to Jan de Vries , the geographical distribution of these dedicatory inscriptions with the core on the Lower Rhine testifies to the importance of veneration by the local population. The area of ​​discovery includes the settlement areas of the Germanic tribes of the Batavians , Cugerner , Marser , Ubier and Tungrer . The Falkirk find also points to the Lower Rhine region, as the founder was a legionnaire who belonged to the "ala Tungrorum". A centurion of the Legio I Minervia donated the consecration stone that was found in Bonn. De Vries points out that members of this unit donated consecration stones to various Germanic deities, such as for the Hludana , the Sunuxal and for the Matronae (Deae) Aufaniae .

iconography

The limestone and bronze statuettes (these also have a drinking vessel) as well as the coins show the naked Hercules with a lion's skin and club, the representation on a Weihaltar from Bonn also shows Cerberus . The pictorial representations of Hercules Magusanus cannot be distinguished from other Roman representations of Hercules.

Etymology and Interpretation

In research, Hercules Magusanus is partially interpreted as a Celtic god . Since the dedicants mostly have Germanic names, a Germanic god must be expected and, according to the usual Interpretatio Romana, a manifestation of the thunder god Donar / Thor should be meant. Rudolf Much and, following him, Siegfried Gutenbrunner , added the name to the Gallic * Magusanos »der vom Feld« (to magos »field«), the name could thus be derived from a place name, possibly from Noviomagus , the presumed main town of the Batavians ( see above Theodor Mommsen ). Eduard Norden combined the nickname Magusanus with the place name “Mahusenham” of today's Myswinkel near Duurstede. Hermann Reichert comments on all the evidence that the epithet is not Germanic, but how comparable with Much and Gutenbrunner there is a Latin derivation of a Celtic place name. Norbert Wagner, with the support of Günter Neumann, explains the nickname differently, however, without a place name reference as a derivation from Germanic * Maguz / s-na- “the one belonging to Kraft, strength; Equipped with strength ”.

Jan de Vries pointed out with regard to the Germanic character of certain Hercules inscriptions, in particular the "Magusanus inscriptions", that the essential connecting characteristic of Hercules and Donar / Thor is both physical strength, or the personification of this strength. Günter Neumann interprets the finding of this education through the interpretation of Latin theonym with Germanic surnames that these Germanic elements represent conservative linguistic relics of a population that was in a strong process of acculturation in a Gallo-Roman environment.

In this context of acculturation and previously the ethnogenesis of the Batavians in the Lower Rhine region, the cult of Hercules Magusanus is to be seen as their main deity.

See also

• Hercules Deusoniensis
• Hercules Saxanus
• Mars Halamardus
• Germanic religion
• Teutons: Germanic religion

literature

• Patrizia de Bernardo stamp : names of gods in Germania inferior. In: Wolfgang Spickermann , Rainer Wiegels (Ed.): Celtic gods in the Roman Empire. (= Osnabrück research on antiquity and the reception of antiquity, 9). Bibliopolis, Möhnesee 2005, pp. 139–148; here 146.
  • This: Celtic equivalents of classical epithets and other linguistic and non-linguistic phenomena in the context of the so-called 'interpretatio Romana'. In: Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 61 (2014), pp. 7–48; here 28–29.
• Siegfried Gutenbrunner : Germanic god names of the ancient inscriptions . Niemeyer, Halle / S. 1936, pp. 60-61, 220-221.
• Friedrich Kauffmann : Mythological evidence from Roman inscriptions. 1. Hercules Magusanus. In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 15 (1891), pp. 553–562.
• Rudolf Much , Wolfgang Lange, with the collaboration of Herbert Jankuhn and Hans Fromm: Die Germania des Tacitus. 3. Edition. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1967, pp. 74ff., 175–176.
• Günter Neumann : Name studies on old Germanic. Edited by Heinrich Hettrich and Astrid van Nahl . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020100-0 , pp. 33, 222, 224. (= supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 59).
• Hermann Reichert : Lexicon of the old Germanic names . Volume I, Part 1: Text volume. With the collaboration of Wilibald Kraml, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1987, ISBN 978-3-7001-0931-0 , pp. 484–485. ( Thesaurus Palaeogermanicus , 1.1)
• Nico Roymans: Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power. The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2004, ISBN 90-5356-705-4 , pp. 235-250. (= Amsterdam Archeological Studies , 10)
• Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X , pp. 183-184.
• Lauran Toorians: Magusanus the Old Lad: A Case of Germanicised Celtic. In: NOWELE 42 (2003), pp. 13-28.
• Jan de Vries : Old Germanic history of religion . Vol. 2. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 3. unchanged. (Fotomech. Nachdr. D. 2nd completely revised edition. 1957), Reprint 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-002807-2 , pp. 108-109.
• Norbert Wagner: Hercules Magusanus. In: Bonner Jahrbücher 177 (1977), pp. 417-422.

Web links

• Inscriptions of Hercules Magusanus in the Heidelberg Epigraphic Database

Remarks

1. ↑ CIL 13, 8010 from Bonn
   AE 1971, 282 from Bonn
   CIL 13, 8492 from Cologne-Deutz
   AE 1977, 570 from Wardt - Lüttingen near Xanten
   AE 1994, 1282 from Waardenburg
   AE 1994, 1284 from Houten
   CIL 13, 8771 from Ruimel near Sint-Michielsgestel Image of the stone
   CIL 13, 8705 from Malburgen, Gelderland
   CIL 13, 8777 from Westkapelle
   CIL 6, 31162 donated by the Equites singulares in Rome on September 29, 219
   CIL 7, 1090 from Falkirk (Mumrill) on Antoninus Wall (Scotland)
   AE 1977, 702 from Borșa , Dacia (Romania).
   
2. ↑ CIL 13, 8610 from Xanten .
3. ↑ CIL 13, 10027, 212a-d from Tongern , Bonn, Cologne and Neuss-Grimlinghausen .
4. ^ Georg Elmer : The coinage of the Gallic emperors in Cologne, Trier and Milan . In: Bonner Jahrbücher 146, 1941, 44 No. 287. 293.
5. ↑ Today 's-Hertogenbosch , Noordbrabants Museum 15124 ( illustration ).
6. ↑ AE 1990, 740 : Herculi / Magusen (o) / Iulius Gen / ialis veter (anus) / leg (ionis) XG (eminae) P (iae) F (idelis) / v (otum) s (olvit) l (aetus ) l (ibens) m (erito) .
7. ↑ Nico Roymans, Ton Derks: The Temple of Empel. A Hercules sanctuary in the Batavian area . In: Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 23, 1993, pp. 479–492 ( full text ); Nico Roymans, Ton Derks: De tempel van Empel. Een Hercules-Heiligdom in het woongebied van de Bataven . Stichting Brabantse Regionale Geschiedbeoefening, 's-Hertogenbosch 1994, ISBN 90-72526-25-2 .
8. ↑ CIL 13, 8705 .
9. ↑ AE 1971, 282 .
10. ↑ AE 1971, 282 ; Epigraphic database Heidelberg with illustration .
11. ^ Eduard Norden: The Germanic prehistory in Tacitus Germania. 4th unchanged edition, WBG Darmstadt 1959, pp. 176, 494.