Interpretatio Celtica

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interpretatio Celtica , also Interpretatio Gallica , is the name for the "Celtization" of Greek or Roman to Celtic / Gallic deities . It was mainly used in Roman Gaul and is the local counterpart to Interpretatio Romana and Interpretatio Graeca .

meaning

The results of the interpretation are often difficult to tell apart. Thus, through the Interpretatio Romana in the Bernese Lukan Scholien , Teutates is equated on the one hand with Mercurius and on the other hand with Mars . The Interpretatio Celtica connects these two Roman gods in the person of Teutates through their function as fertility and prosperity bringer. On the tombstone of Agassac ( Haute-Garonne department ), a nereid is depicted in the form of the goddess Epona while riding through a host of sea monsters . According to Birkhan, this could mean the Gallic interpretation of a nereid by the Celtic horse goddess. The fact that Jean-Jacques Hatt referred to it as Epona psychopompe , however, goes beyond the Interpretatio Celtica, as does his attempt to interpret the alleged "main myth" of the Gauls from the figures on the cauldron by Gundestrup .

Jörg Rüpke formulated the development of Interpretatio Gallica in such a way that the Celts would have developed new cult practices and iconographic possibilities with the acquisition of the Latin language .

Helga Botermann assumes that a Gauls who traded with Greeks and Romans in Gallia Narbonensis could certainly have worshiped the Greek Hermes or the Roman Mercurius under a suitable Celtic god name as patron for his business, this would be a clear case of the Interpretatio Gallica.

literature

  • Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Pp. 448 f, 547 f.
  2. ^ Johann Figl (Ed.): Handbuch Religionswissenschaft: Religionen and their central themes . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN 3-7022-2508-0 , p. 226 (880 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ Jean-Jacques Hatt: La tombe Gallo-Romaine , Paris 1951 (new edition Picard 1986, ISBN 978-2-7084-0323-9 ), pp. 239, 336 f, fig. 4th
  4. ^ Jörg Rüpke: Domi militiae: the religious construction of the war in Rome . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05679-3 , pp. 258 (312 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Helga Botermann: How the Gauls became Romans: Life in the Roman Empire . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-608-94048-0 , p. 185 (474 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).