Cicolluis

God of the Lingones

Mars Cicolluis has long been recognised as the tutelary god of the Lingones. Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier treats the equation of Cicolluis with Mars an official interpretatio romana rather than a slow fusion. On this view, it was not a gradual blending of two figures but as a deliberate choice of the local elite when the civitas was organised under Augustus. In her account the god is neither Gaulish nor Roman but Lingon, a status confirmed by his exclusive use among that people.^[4] Andreas Hofeneder likewise lists Cicolluis as the local Lingon equation of the god with Mars, similar to Camulus of the Remi and Caturix of the Helvetii.^[7]

The god appears to have had no temple in the civitas capital at Langres (Andematunnum). Raepsaet-Charlier connects this with Roman practice, in which the temple of Mars stood outside the city, in the same manner the Campus Martius lay beyond the pomerium of Rome. A large sanctuary of Mars and Bellona has in fact been found immediately south of Langres, while Mars Cicolluis and Litavis were honoured at the territorial sanctuary of Mâlain.^[8] The find-spots of these cults, at Mâlain and Aignay-le-Duc, mark out the edge of the Lingon territory, which for Raepsaet-Charlier shows how the community defined its land through its religious sites.^[9]

Consort

In most of the dedications Cicolluis is paired with the goddess Litavis, whose name derives from a Celtic word for the earth.^[10][11] John T. Koch describes Litavis as an earth-goddess and Cicolluis as her consort.^[11]

In one dedication from Mâlain the consort's native name is replaced by that of the Roman war-goddess Bellona. Venceslas Kruta notes that Bellona appears in Gaul as the companion of Mars Cicolluis in the Côte-d'Or. Andreas Hofeneder treats Litavis and Bellona as the native and the Latin name of the same figure. He cautions, however, that other dedications naming Mars and Bellona in Celtic territory may refer to the Roman deities rather than to Cicolluis and his consort.^[12][13]

In most of the dedications Cicolluis is paired with the goddess Litavis. Her name derives from a Celtic word for the earth, cognate with Sanskrit pṛthivī and Old English folde 'earth', from an Indo-European term meaning 'the broad one'. The same word gave a Celtic name for Brittany, surviving as Welsh Llydaw.^[10][11] John Koch describes Litavis as an earth-goddess and Cicolluis as her consort, and connects her name with the personal name Litaviccus, borne by an Aeduan leader in Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars.^[11] In one dedication from Mâlain the consort's native name is replaced by that of the Roman war-goddess Bellona, and Venceslas Kruta notes that Bellona appears in Gaul as the companion of Mars Cicolluis in the Côte-d'Or. Andreas Hofeneder treats Litavis and Bellona as the native and the Latin name of the same figure. He cautions, however, that other dedications naming Mars and Bellona in Celtic territory may refer to the Roman deities rather than to Cicolluis and his consort.^[12][13]

Irish comparison

Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h connected the god's name with that of the Irish Fomorian demon Cichol. Both names appear to mean 'the muscular one', and Patrice Lajoye treats them as exact linguistic equivalents.^[14][6] Despite this, Lajoye argues that the Cicolluis and the Cichol are joined by only very weak links, and that their identity is far from certain.^[6] He argues that the nature of the divine couple may nonetheless make such a link intelligible, and reads Litavis as the earth in a dark, chthonic aspect, while Cichol is a primordial being, named in Irish tradition as a contemporary of Partholón and so older than the Fomoire whom the Tuatha Dé Danann would later defeat. On this view Cicolluis and Litavis form a pair of chthonic and primordial deities, worshipped for the fertility of the land but also tied to death, a civic cult far removed from that of the celestial gods Grannus and Sirona.^[15]

The comparative use of medieval Irish material to interpret Gallo-Roman cults is, however, treated with caution by other scholars. Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier regards it as resting on an unverified and improbable assumption of continuity, since the Irish narratives come from regions that were never under Roman rule.^[16]