Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/48

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ANCIENT CELTIC GODDESSES
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(earlier Saint Bourbaz), canton Lagnieu, Ain. At Saint Saturnin d’Apt we find an inscription to another goddess, Albiorīca, whose name is given in the dative Albiorice. She was doubtless regarded as the companion of Albiorix, to whom (Marti Albiorigi) there is an inscription at Sablet, cant. Baumes, near Vaison, Vaucluse. At Viens, dép. Vaucluse, arrond. and cant, of Apt, there is an inscription to Bergonia, a name doubtless cognate with Brigindu and Brigantia. The goddess Dexsiva may either be the eponymous goddess of the Dexivates, or a goddess of fortune. We find inscriptions to her at Pertuis, dép. Vaucluse, arrond. Apt (Dexsivæ), and at Cadenet in the same district, on the hill of Castelar, three times. Another local goddess is Trittia, the local goddess of Trets, an old town in the arr. of Aix, dép. Bouches-du-Rhône: there is one inscription at Carnoules, dép. Var (Trittiæ), and another at Pierrefeu, dép. Var (Trittæ). The name Ritonā is the name of a river-goddess, that of the modern river Rieu, to whom inscriptions occur at Montaren near Alais, dép. Gard, arr. and canton Uzès, and another [R]iton[a]e at Saint Honoré-les-bains, dép. Nièvre. In view of the fact that this inscription is so far north, it may be doubted whether its interpretation is at all correct. At Béziers is an inscription in honour of a goddess, who may be either Ricoria or Tricoria; while an inscription to a goddess Diiona (cf. Dibona, Divona) occurs at Bagnol-sur-Cèze, dép. Gard, arrond. Uzès. This was probably the eponymous nymph of the brook la Vionne or l’Andiole, which flows into the Cèze. The name occurs in the nominative, DiIona. The form of the name suggests that in this dialect of Celtic there was a tendency to drop intervocalic ‘v.’ The remaining name of an individual goddess from this district is Thucolis, which occurs on an inscription from Le Prugnon near Antibes, in the department of the Alpes-Maritimes. She appears to have had a priestess or priestesses.

It will be readily seen from the evidence of these inscriptions that, in the south of Gaul, group-goddesses were far more widely worshipped than individual goddesses. The latter appear to be in this district highly localised in character,

VOL. III.
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