Taranis

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}}

Altar from Orgon, France with a Gaulish inscription recording an offering to Taranis.

Taranis (sometimes Taranus or Tanarus) is a Celtic thunder god attested in literary and epigraphic sources.

The Roman poet Lucan's epic Pharsalia mentions Taranis, Esus, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Celtic gods under their native names in a Latin text has been the subject of much comment. Almost as often commented on are the scholia to Lucan's poem (early medieval, but relying on earlier sources) which tell us the nature of these sacrifices: in particular, that the victims of Taranis were burned in a hollow wooden container. This sacrifice has been compared with the wicker man described by Caesar.

These scholia also tell us that Taranis was perhaps either equated by the Romans with Dis Pater, Roman god of the underworld, or Jupiter, Roman god of weather. Scholars have preferred the latter equation to the former, as Taranis is also equated with Jupiter in inscriptions. Both identifications have been studied against Caesar's lapidary remarks about the Gaulish Jupiter and Gaulish Dis Pater.

The equation of Taranis with Jupiter has been reason for some scholars to identify Taranis with the "wheel god" of the Celts. This god, known only from iconographic sources, is depicted with a spoked wheel and the attributes of Jupiter (including a thunderbolt). No direct evidence links Taranis with the wheel god, so other scholars have expressed reservations about this identification.

Various inscriptions attest to Taranis's worship, dating between the 4th century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Scholars have drawn contrary conclusions about the importance of Taranis from the distribution of these inscriptions.

NameEdit

File:RIB 452, John Grenehalgh.png

Altar dedicated to Jupiter Tanaris from Chester, England

Etymology and developmentEdit

Taranis's name derives from proto-Celtic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("thunder"), which in turn derives from the proto-Indo-European root {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("to thunder"). Through the proto-Celtic etymon, the theonym is cognate with words for thunder in Old Irish ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), Old Breton ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), Middle Welsh ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), and (as a loan word into a non-Celtic language) the Gascon dialect of French ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).<ref name=Matasovic>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

During the development of Celtic, the word for thunder seem to have undergone a metathesis (transposition of syllables) from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref name=Matasovic/>Template:Rp The question of whether the Chester altar (discussed below) should be read as attesting to an unmetathesised form of the god's name, Tanaris, was for a long time controversial. However, the discovery of a dedication to {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("Jupiter Tanaris") in Dalmatia confirms that such a form did exist.<ref name=ALIP/>

Thunder godEdit

The association with thunder, suggested by the etymology of Taranis's name, is confirmed by his equation with Jupiter.<ref name=Meid>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp Taranis's name corresponds etymologically to that of the Germanic god Donar (i.e., Thor).<ref name=Meid/>Template:Rp Peter Jackson has conjectured that the theonyms Taranis and Donar (as well as perhaps the epithet Tonans of Jupiter) originated as a result of the "fossilization of an original epithet or epiklesis" of the proto-Indo-European thunder god *Perkʷūnos.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp Calvert Watkins compared Taranis's name with the name of the Hittite weather god Tarḫunna. However, John T. Koch pointed out that an etymology linking the two theonyms would reverse the order of the metathesis (so that Taranis precedes Tanaris) and therefore compromise the proto-Indo-European etymology.<ref name=Koch>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Lucan and the scholiaEdit

LucanEdit

Lucan's Pharsalia or De Bello Civili (On the Civil War) is an epic poem, begun about 61 CE, on the events of Caesar's civil war (49–48 BCE). The passage relevant to Taranis occurs in "Gallic excursus", an epic catalogue detailing the rejoicing of the various Gaulish peoples after Caesar removed his legions from Gaul (where they were intended to control the natives) to Italy. The passage thus brings out two themes of Lucan's work, the barbarity of the Gauls and the unpatriotism of Caesar.<ref name=Hofeneder2>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Template:Verse translation

The substance of the last few lines is this: unspecified Gauls, who made human sacrifices to their gods Teutates, Esus, and Taranis, were overjoyed by the exit of Caesar's troops from their territory.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp The reference to "Diana of the Scythians" refers to the human sacrifices demanded by Diana at her temple in Scythian Taurica, well known in antiquity.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp That Lucan says little about these gods is not surprising. Lucan's aims were poetic, and not historical or ethnographic. The poet never travelled to Gaul and relied on secondary sources for his knowledge of Gaulish religion. When he neglects to add more, this may well reflect the limits of his knowledge.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp<ref name=GreenAltar>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp

We have no literary sources prior to Lucan which mention these deities, and the few which mention them after Lucan (in the case of Taranis, Papias aloneTemplate:Efn) rely on this passage.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp The secondary sources on Celtic religion which Lucan relied on in this passage (perhaps Posidonius) have not come down to us.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp This passage is one of the very few in classical literature in which Celtic gods are mentioned under their native names,Template:Efn rather than identified with Greek or Roman gods. This departure from classical practice likely had poetic intent: emphasising the barbarity and exoticness the Gauls, whom Caesar had left to their own devices.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp

Some scholars, such as de Vries, have argued that the three gods mentioned together here (Esus, Teutates, and Taranis) formed a divine triad in ancient Gaulish religion. However, there is little other evidence associating these gods with each other. Other scholars, such as Graham Webster, emphasise that Lucan may as well have chosen these deity-names for their scansion and harsh sound.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp

ScholiaEdit

Lucan's Pharsalia was a very popular school text in late antiquity and the medieval period. This created a demand for commentaries and scholia dealing with difficulties in the work, both in grammar and subject matter.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp The earliest Lucan scholia that have come down to us are the Commenta Bernensia and Adnotationes Super Lucanum, both from manuscripts datable between the 9th and 11th centuries.<ref name=Esposito>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Also important are comments from a Cologne codex (the Glossen ad Lucan), dating to the 11th and 12th centuries.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp In spite of their late date, these scholia are thought to incorporate very ancient material, some of it now lost. The Commenta and Adnotationes are known to contain material at least as old as Servius the Grammarian (4th century CE).<ref name=Esposito/>Template:Rp Below are excerpts from these scholia relevant to Taranis:

Commentary	Latin	English
Commenta Bernensia ad Lucan, 1.445	lang}}	Taranis Dispater is appeased in this way by them: several people are burned in a wooden tub.<ref name=HofenederCB/>
Commenta Bernensia ad Lucan, 1.445	lang}}	We also find it [depicted] differently by other [authors]. [...] the leader of wars and chief of the heavenly gods, Taranis, [they consider] to be Jupiter, who was once accustomed to be appeased with human heads, but now [is accustomed] to delight in those of animals.<ref name=HofenederCB>Translation after the German in Template:Cite book</ref>
Adnotationes super Lucanum, 1.445.	lang}}	Taranis is called Jupiter by the Gauls, to whom sacrifices are made with human blood.<ref name=HofenederAS>Translation after the German in Template:Cite book</ref>
Glossen ad Lucan, 1.445	lang}}	Tharanis Jupiter. All of these were worshipped in the Teutonic regions at Taranus (?), as a day of the week is called in Teutonic.<ref name=HofenederG>Translation after the German in Template:Cite book</ref>

The first excerpt, about the sacrifice to Taranis, comes from a passage in the Commenta which details the human sacrifices offered each of to the three gods (persons were suspended from trees and dismembered for Esus, persons were drowned in a barrel for Teutates). This passage, which is not paralleled anywhere else in classical literature, has been much the subject of much commentary. It seems to have been preserved in the Commenta by virtue of its author's preference for factual (over grammatical) explanation.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp The Adnotationes, by comparison, tell us nothing about the sacrifices to Esus, Teutates, and Taranis beyond that they were each murderous.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp

File:The Wicker Man of the Druids crop.jpg

An imaginative 18th-century illustration of the wicker man

The Commenta tells us that as sacrifices to Taranis, several people were burned in a wooden {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. The Latin word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is translated above as "tub", but it could applied to any hollow container. In various settings, the term could be used to mean a ship's hull, a bath tub, a drainage basin, a canoe, or a beehive.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp Miranda Green linked this sacrifice with the wicker man, the well-known wooden figure in which (according to Caesar and Strabo) humans were burned as sacrifices.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

The interpretatio romana of Taranis as Jupiter, given by all three commentaries, is otherwise attested in epigraphy, and agrees with our understanding of Taranis as a thunder god. By contrast, the interpretatio of Taranis as Dis Pater, which only the Commenta gives,Template:Efn is quite obscure. It is not given in any inscription, and we do not know what Taranis had to do with the underworld.Template:Efn<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp Manfred Hainzmann points out that Dis was associated in Latin literature with the night sky and night thunderstorms. Statius, for example, refers to Dis Pater as the "thunderer of the underworld" (Thebaid, 11.209).<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp

In the course of giving the interpretatio of Taranis as Jupiter, the scholiast of the Commenta mentions that Taranis was "leader of wars". This is an unusual trait to associate with Jupiter rather than Mars (Roman god of war), though the Romans occasionally gave Jupiter martial functions. Hofeneder has associated the comment that Taranis was "appeased with human heads" with this martial function, as the (pre-Roman) Celtic custom of carrying off their foes' heads in battle is well-attested.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp The scholiast describes a transition from human to animal sacrifice, probably connected to the suppression of human sacrifice in Gaul in the Imperial period.<ref name=Demandt>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Caesar states in his Commentaries on the Gallic War that the Gauls regarded a Gaulish god (whom Caesar equated with Dis Pater) as their ancestor.<ref name=Hainzmann>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp As Taranis is the only Celtic god equated with Dis Pater in ancient literary sources, Taranis has often been a cited as a candidate for Gaulish Dis Pater.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp On the other hand, Caesar also briefly refers to an unnamed Gaulish god who "rules over all the gods" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), and whom he equates with Jupiter. It has been suggested that Taranis is behind this description.<ref name=Hofeneder1>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The similarity between Caesar's description of Gaulish Jupiter, and the CommentaTemplate:'s description of Taranis as "chief of the heavenly gods" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), has been noted, though this may reflect reliance on Caesar's text or a routine characterisation of the Roman god Jupiter.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp

Taranis and the wheel godTemplate:AnchorEdit

The wheel god ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) is a figure of Celtic religious iconography, a god wielding a spoked wheel. The wheel god is often depicted with the attributes of Jupiter: thunderbolt, sceptre, and eagle. The spoked wheel was an important religious motif for the Celts. Metal votive wheels (known as Template:Ill) are known from Iron Age Europe.<ref name=GreenJupiter>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae lists 15 depictions of the wheel god. Some are statuettes of the god dressed in Gaulish garb, with a wheel in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. A mosaic from Saint-Romain-en-Gal shows a woman and a man leaving sacrifices to such a statuette. An obscure scene on the Gundestrup cauldron perhaps shows a leaping devotee offering a wheel to the wheel god. The so-called Jupiter columns, religious monuments widespread in Germania, are frequently crowned with an equestrian god, who sometimes wields a wheel.<ref name=Nagy/>Template:Rp

Because both were identified with Jupiter, Taranis has been repeatedly equated with the wheel god (for example, by Pierre Lambrechts, Template:Ill, and Anne Ross).<ref name=GreenAltar/>Template:Rp However, nothing connects the gods directly. No inscription links Taranis with wheel iconography.<ref name=BN/>Template:Rp Some scholars have rejected this equation. Green rejects it, and argues that the wheel god was a solar deity; naturally identifiable with Jupiter, but distinct from the thunder god Taranis.<ref name=GreenAltar/>Template:Rp Template:Ill and Template:Ill both express scepticism in their studies of Jupiter columns in Germany.<ref name=BN/>Template:Rp Árpád M. Nagy described the equation as "probable, but not binding".<ref name=Nagy/>Template:Rp

In any case, the combination of the thunderbolt and wheel as attributes is not unique to one deity: Hercules is occasionally depicted with these attributes in the Latin West, and a female deity with a thunderbolt and wheel is known from a statue in Autun.<ref name=Nagy>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

EpigraphyEdit

Text	Context	Date	Language	Citation	Comments
lang}}}	Inscribed on an object (perhaps a keyhandle) made from staghorn. Found in Sottopedonda, in the Fiemme Valley, Italy.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp	Template:Sort<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp	Raetic	Template:Abbr FI-1	The god Taranis (in the form Tarani) is invoked twice in this obscure (perhaps magico-religious) Raetic inscription. Simona Marchesini has argued that the absence of the Celtic final -s suggests "the god's name was well integrated in the Raetic world".<ref name=Marchesini>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
lang}} (translit. Template:Transliteration)	Inscribed on a small cippus. Found in Orgon, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.<ref name=G27/>	Template:Sort<ref name=G27/>	Gaulish	RIG I G-27	Lejeune offers the translation "Vebrumaros offered Taranus in gratitude (?) the tithe (?)".<ref name=G27>RIG I G-27 via Recueil informatisé des inscriptions gauloises. Accessed on 16 January 2025.</ref>
lang}}	Inscribed on an altar. Found in Bribir, Dalmatia, Croatia.<ref name=2010-1225>AE 2010, 1225</ref>	Template:Sort<ref name=2010-1225/>	Latin	AE 2010, 1225
lang}}	Inscribed on a terracotta jug. Found near Amiens, Somme, France.<ref name=1966-269>AE 1966, 269</ref>	Template:Sort<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp	Latin	Template:AE	Another inscription found nearby (Template:AE) suggests the find-spot was originally a place of religious significance.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp
lang}}	Found in Caesarodunum (Roman Tours), Indre-et-Loire, France<ref>Template:CIL</ref>	Template:Sort<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp	Latin	Template:CIL	lang}} is a personal name.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp
lang}}	Found in Scardona (Roman Skradin), Dalmatia, Croatia<ref name=3-2804/>	Template:Sort<ref name=3-2804>Template:CIL</ref>	Latin	Template:CIL
lang}}Template:Efn	Inscribed on a gold lamella. Found in Baudecet, Gembloux, Belgium.<ref name=L109>RIG II.2 L-109 in Lambert, Pierre-Yves (2002). Recueil des inscriptions gauloises. II, fasc. 2, Textes gallo-latins sur instrumentum. Paris: Éd. du CNRS. pp. 310-312.</ref>	Template:Sort<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp	Latin (perhaps with Gaulish, Greek or Germanic elements)	RIG II.2 L-109	This magico-religious inscription from Belgic Gaul is difficult to interpret. Several lines appear to be meaningless ephesia grammata. In arguing that the inscription has Gaulish elements, Template:Ill and Patrizia de Bernardo proposed that line 4 invokes the god Taranis. However, Pierre-Yves Lambert proposed the tablet is an Orphic gold tablet, and reads this line as an Orphic formula in Greek.<ref name=L109/>
lang}}	Inscribed on an altar. Found in Thauron, Creuse, France.<ref name=1961-159>AE 1961, 159</ref>	Template:Sort<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp	Latin	Template:AE	lang}} is a god name or a personal name.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp
lang}}	Inscribed on an altar. Found in Chester, England.<ref name=RIB-452/>	Template:Sort<ref name=RIB-452>Template:RIB</ref>	Latin	Template:CIL = Template:RIB	This votive inscription to Jupiter Tanarus, by one Lucius Elufrius Praesens from Clunia, was one of the Arundel marbles.<ref name=RIB-452/> The inscription is now badly weathered and illegible, but was read and recorded in the 17th century. The unusual form of the god's name here (Tanarus) has led to repeated suggestions of a misspelling on the part of the engraver or misreading in the original autopsy. However, the discovery of a dedication to {{#invoke:Lang\|lang}} in Dalmatia has somewhat obviated these concerns.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp<ref name=ALIP>{{#invoke:citation/CS1\|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Inscribed on an altar. Found in Godramstein, Germany.<ref name=13-6094/>	Template:Sort<ref name=13-6094>Template:CIL</ref>	Latin	Template:CIL
lang}}	Inscribed on an altar. Found in Böckingen, Germany.<ref name=13-6478/>	Template:Sort<ref name=13-6478>Template:CIL</ref>	Latin	Template:CILr\
lang}} [...]	Inscribed on a tablet. Found in Nicopolis ad Istrum, Bulgaria.<ref name=3-6150/>	Template:Sort<ref name=3-6150>Template:CIL</ref>	Latin	Template:CIL = Template:CIL = Template:CIL	lang}} is a personal name.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp

A few different forms of the god's name are known from epigraphy. The spelling Taranus, which is much more common than Taranis in epigraphy, is an older form than Taranis.<ref name=Hainzmann/>Template:Rp There is the above-discussed un-metathesised form Taranus. There is also Taranuc(n)us ("son/descendant of Taranus"), known from two inscriptions of Germania Superior, which attaches a patronymic suffix to Taranis's name.<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp

Different scholars have drawn different conclusions about Taranis's importance and the geographical extent of his worship from his epigraphic attestations. Marion Euskirchen calls the epigraphic evidence "scanty and altogether not unambiguous", which "suggests a rather limited significance of the god within a number of tribal federations".<ref name=Euskirchen>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Hofeneder, on the other hand, states that Taranis is "attested surprisingly often" for a Celtic god, a fact which "clearly indicates that he must have been a deity worshipped in large parts of Template:Ill and over a long period of time".<ref name=Hofeneder2/>Template:Rp