Cathubodua
Gaulish deity
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Cathubodua (Proto-Celtic: *Katu-bodwā, "battle crow") is an ancient Celtic god attested in a single votive inscription found near Mieussy in Haute Savoie, eastern France. Little is known with certainty about Cathubodua due to lack of sources but the etymology of their name has led some scholars to speculate a connection to the Badb, a goddess who appears in Irish mythology, and interpret Cathubodua similarly as a war goddess.[1][2]
| Cathubodua | |
|---|---|
Celtic war goddess (speculative) | |
| Venerated in | Gallia Narbonensis |
| Ethnic group | Gauls |
| Equivalents | |
| Irish | The Badb (speculative) |
Etymology
In the Gaulish language, the name Cathubodua is believed to mean battle-crow.[3] Etymological lexical forms reconstructed in the University of Wales' Proto-Celtic lexicon, suggest that the name is likely to be ultimately derived from the Proto-Celtic *Katu-bodwā (*katu meaning "war, battle" and *bodwā meaning "crow"), a word that could be interpreted as ‘battle-fighting’.[4][5] Jufer and Luginbühl offer an alternative etymology, connecting -bodua to *boudi- / bodio- ("victory, advantage").[6]
Mieussy Inscription
The inscription found near Mieussy is engraved in a badly worn stone altar dated to the time of Roman Gaul. Written in the Latin script, the inscription reads:
[...]ATHVBODVAE AVG SERVILIA TERENTIA S L M
Several of the letters are abbreviations for the words of an invocation commonly used in Roman votive inscriptions. In full, the text reads:
[...]ATHVBODVAE AVG(VSTAE) SERVILIA TERENTIA V(OTVM) S(OLVIT) L(IBENS) M(ERITO)[2]
The text's restitution as Cathubodua depends on the assumptions that an initial C has been lost[7] and that the personal names ATEBODVAE, ATEBODVVS and ATEBODVI in 3 other inscriptions in modern Austria and Slovenia are unrelated.[8]
