Editing Matres and Matronae (section)

{{Short description|Deities of fertility in Celtic and Germanic myth}}
[[Image:Deesses de Vertault (musée de Bibracte).jpg|thumb|Terracotta relief of the ''Matres'' (the [[Vertault relief]]), from the [[Gallo-Roman culture|Gallo-Roman settlement]] of [[Vertillum]] ([[Vertault]]) in [[Gaul]]]]
[[File:Matronenaltar.jpg|thumb|upright|An altar of the ''Aufanian Matronae'', excavated in the [[Bonn Minster]] (Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn)]]

The '''Matres''' ([[Latin]] for "mothers"){{Sfn|Lindow|2002|p=224}} and '''Matronae''' (Latin for "matrons"){{Sfn|Lindow|2002|p=224}} were female [[deity|deities]] venerated in [[Northwestern Europe]], of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century AD. They are depicted on [[votive offering]]s and [[altar]]s that bear images of [[goddess]]es, depicted almost entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions (about half of which feature [[Continental Celtic languages|Continental Celtic]] names and half of which feature [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] names) and were venerated in regions of [[Germania]], [[Gaul|Eastern Gaul]], and [[Northern Italy]] (with a small distribution elsewhere) that were occupied by the [[Roman army]] from the first to the fifth century.{{Sfn|Simek|1996|pp=204–205}}

Matres also appear on votive reliefs and inscriptions in other areas occupied by the Roman army, including southeast Gaul, as at [[Vertillum]]; in Spain and Portugal, where some twenty inscriptions are known, among them several ones that include local epithets such as a dedication to the ''Matribus Gallaicis'' "to the [[Galicia (Spain)|Galician]] Mothers";<ref>CIL II 2776.</ref> and also in the Romano-Celtic culture of [[Pannonia]] in the form of similar reliefs and inscriptions to the ''Nutrices Augustae'', "the august Nurses" found in Roman sites of [[Ptuj]], [[Styria (Slovenia)|Lower Styria]].<ref>K. Wigand, "Die Nutrices Augustae von Poeticio" ''Jahreshrift Österreiches Archäologisches Institut'' '''18''' (1915), pp 118-218, illus., noted by Susan Scheinberg, "The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes" ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' '''83''' (1979), p 2.</ref>