were barbarian, at the time of the coming of the Romans. Whether their own peculiar arts and sciences indigenous, or the result of intercourse with civilized foreigners coming hither at a period anterior to the Romans, can be hardly ascertained, but it is very probable that the native culture was greatly improved and beneficially directed by such intercourse as the metalseekers could establish with the island populations. But be this as it may, the British skill in agricultural art was considerable. It is known that they were accustomed to the employ of primitive machinery, and the apparatus of the farm, carriages, and waggons, the watermill, possibly the windmill, and a variety of tools and utensils adapted to the simplification and reduction of hard manual labour, were certainly not unknown; and the fact that they built cities and populous towns, bringing many of the arts necessary to this end to a tolerably high pitch of perfection, sufficiently indicates that there was an advanced and still advancing progress of human emollition among them. Roads, streets, public edifices, a monetary system, a code of law, a definite religion, public ceremonies of religion, state and domestic functions, a theoretical sepulture, and many other tangible vestiges, taken as a whole, clearly indicate that the Celtic inhabitants of Britain were well advanced in the practice of a system which was not the creation of a day, but had been long gathering up its details, and might have developed into something parallel with Buddhism or Mohamedanism, if its civil advancement had become more thoroughly crystallised before the irresistible tide of Christianity was poured over the land by the efforts of the Roman missionaries. Scant notices have been given by the ancient writers respecting the religion of these early races of Britain. Professor Rhys sees no reason to suppose that their religious ideas differed very materially from those of the Gauls and of other Aryan nations. They had a somewhat limited pantheon, and the gods endowed with specific and distinctive attributes were identified by Cæsar, for convenience's sake, with Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, Apollo, and particularly Mercury, to whom they gave the most prominent place. That is to say, at the head of the Celtic pantheon stood some deity whose attributes and peculiarities most nearly approached to those which the Romans had attached to their conception of Mercury. The sea-god Nodens is instanced as having had sufficient importance to have a temple built in his honour at Lydney, on the western bank of the River Severn, during Roman times. Every district had its genius loci, every river and every fountain its indwelling deity, to whom invocations were addressed, to whom worship was paid, to whom offerings were presented. This writer sees in the Dee, or Deva, of North Wales, a trace of this in its Welsh name, Aerren, the genius of war, and in its oracular prestige, which still lingered on to the twelfth century, of indicating beforehand the event of the frequent wars between the Welsh and English. The name of another river, we are told, marks it out as formerly divine, the Belisama, perhaps the Ribble, from a Gaulish inscription found to be a goddess of Minerva-like attributes. The Brent may be another example. The Wharfe, in Yorkshire, is another instance of this; an altar at Ilkley, dedicated to Verbeia, seems to enshrine the name of a tutelary genius. Druidism was the religion of the non-Celtic inhabitants, and not of the Brythonic race, and Rhys gives a possible division of the ancient men in our island into three religious elements: Brythonic Celts, or Aryan polytheists; non-Celtic Druidists; Goidelic Celts, using a combination of polytheism and Druidism. Of the barbarism of these Celts little need be said. They consisted apparently in nude orgies, human sacrifices for auguries, magic rites and supernatural manifestations, not unlike those which disgrace all, or almost all, the religious practices of uncivilised tribes wherever they may be found on earth, nor, indeed, very far removed, at least in some of their elements, from the repulsive sacrificial phases of ancient Judaism as detailed in the records. Gradually, upon these characteristics there appears to have grown the practice of philosophy, particularly in Gaul, under the influence of whatever civilisation Marseilles and other outposts of developed intelligence could shed upon these magicians and wise men. Professor Rhys thinks it probable that the Celts found Druidism common to the aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and that some of the customs of the pagans of these islands may be found still in observance among their Christian descendants. Tonsure, for example, he considers a Druidic survival. The learned Professor Emil Hübner, of Berlin, who prepared the Inscriptiones Britannia Latina, under direction of the Royal Academy of Prussia, for the great Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, has recorded a great number of names of local deities found on Roman altars and other lapidary inscribed relics in Britain. These are, perhaps, the best evidence of the cults in vogue among the Romans who assisted in the subjugation of the land. They bear evidence of the particular gods, goddesses, heroes, and other divine or quasi-divine personages, whose worship was introduced to the notice of the original inhabitants by their masters and conquerors. These sacred names may be thus tabulated, but they are by no means all Celtic, although they were probably venerated by a wider class than the strictly Roman population. AESCULAPIUS, Chester, Lanchester (co. Durham) Aeterna Dea, or the goddess Rome Alatervae matres, Nether Cramond (cos. Edinb. and Linlithgow) Alator, Mars, Barkway (Herts) Ancasta Dea, Bittern (Hants) Andesco, Mercurius Deus (Colchester) Anociticus Deus, Benwell (co. Northumb.). This god appears to have the attributes of a garland, a knife, and a pitcher Antenociticus Deus, Benwell. Perhaps another form of the same deity as before ... Antoci Deus, Housesteads. Probably the same as the foregoing Apollo, Lincoln, Auchindavy (between the Clyde and the Forth), Chester-le-Street (co. Durham), Housesteads, Birrens (near Middleby), The Corbridge lanx or dish (co. Northumb.) Among the special forms of this god are : Sol Apollo Anicetus, Ribchester (co. Lanc.) Apollo Clarius Apollo Grannus, Musselburgh Apollo Maponus, Hexham, and Deus Sanctus Apollo Mapo nus, but doubtful, Ribchester Arciacon Deus, York Armicum Deus, Carvoran Astarte, Corbridge Avernus, the Genius of, Great Boughton, near Chester Barreces, Mars, Carlisle Belatucader, or Belatucadrus, the name of a deity evidently Celtic. He occurs in several localities, Ellenborough, and with Deus, Whellepp Castle, Kirkbride, Carvoran, Castlesteads, Burgh-onSands (twice); and with Deus Sanctus, Plumpton, near Penrith, Old Carlisle, and Scaleby Castle. From the occurrence of the phrase, "Deus Mars Belatucader", at Plumpton Wall or Old Penrith, Carvoran, Castlesteads, and Netherby, there is no difficulty in ascertaining that this local deity was a form of the classical Mars Blatucarus, Deus, may probably be a barbarously written synonym for the preceding god. The title occurs at Broughton Castle (Westmoreland) Bellona, Dea. This goddess occurs on an altar at Old Carlisle, near Wigton Braciaca, Deus Mars, near Bakewell (co. Derb.) Brigantia, Birrens. This goddess or nymph, apparently connected with Nike, or Victory, is represented as a winged female, standing, wearing a turreted helmet with leaves, and carrying in the right hand a spear, in the left a ball or globe. She wears the tunica talaris and the paludamentum. At her left side is a shield resting on the ground. She is styled "Dea" on an altar found at Adel, near Leeds, "Dea Nympha" on an inscription found in Cumberland, and "Dea Victoria" on another found at Gretland, Yorkshire Britannia Sancta, York Campestres Matres, Nether Cramond, Newstead, Roxburghshire, etc. Camulus, Deus Mars, Kilsyth. Evidently a Celtic form of the god of war Ceres, Chester. "Alma Ceres" Cocidius. This god is of frequent occurrence. His titles are "Magnus Deus", the great god; "Sanctus" and "Deus Sanctus", the holy god; "Genius Præsidii", the genius of the camp; "Mars Cocidius" or "Mars Deus Cocidius"; "Deus Sanctus Mars Cocidius", and "Deus Mars Cocidius Genius Valli", the tutelary genius or protector of the Wall. This last formula occurs on an altar at Old Wall, six miles east of Old Carlisle. "Deus Silvanus Cocidius", on an altar found at Housesteads, is an interesting example of another side to the character of the deity, apparently scarcely in keeping with his martial pro clivities Condates, Deus Mars, Piers Bridge (co. Durham) occurs with the mystical fylfot emblem. Hübner considers that Mars Condates may have been a tutelary god of the confluence of the river Tees with another smaller stream which joined it at this site The consorts of the invincible god Hercules, Carlisle Ialonus Contrebis, Lanchester Cerotiacus, Deus Mars. This local form of Mars is evidently Celtic, Martlesham (Suff.) Deus, i.e., Mithras; "Deus qui vias et semitas commentus est", a god of ways and paths; "Di cultores hujus loci", the tutelary gods of the place, Risingham1 Diana, in the Corbridge lanx and elsewhere Epona, Auchindavie, and Dea Epona, Carvoran. Apparently a British goddess Eventus Bonus, Good Fortune, and Fatum Bonum, Fortuna, Fortuna Redux, with similar terms Fulgur divum, the lightning shaft of the gods, or the divine light ning, Matfen (co. Northumb.) Genius frequently occurs either alone or with special significations, as Genius Averni, collegii, domini nostri, dominorum nostrorum, praesidii, prætorii, provinciae Britanniae, terrae Britannicae, valli, and so forth Hammia, or Hammiorum, Dea, near Thirlwall Castle. Thought to be Magna Mater or Dea Syria Harimella, Dea, Birrens Hercules occurs frequently with or without the epithets Deus, Deus invictus; Hercules Magusanus, near Falkirk, and Hercules Saegon, a somewhat doubtful inscription at Ilchester (co. Somers.), may be local or foreign epithets of the hero Invictus appears to be used as an epithet of Hercules and of Mithras Isurium, or Aldborough, has been said to enshrine in its name a reference to the goddess Isis; but I think rather that it refers to the river Eure, upon which it stands Jupiter naturally occurs very frequently, almost always with the epithets of Optimus Maximus. Among the varieties of this god are Jupiter Dolichenus, Jupiter Dolichenus Heliopolitanus, Jupiter Heliopolitanus, Jupiter Tanarus, Jupiter Serapis Juno occurs on the Corbridge lanx Lamiae, the three, Benwell Manes, Dii. These gods, all-powerful over the departed, occur everywhere throughout Roman Britain. It is doubtful if they were ever represented on the sepulchral slabs which were dedicated to them. The term secreti Manes in a poem on a cippus, York. The language of this pathetic poem, written by the father of Q. Corellius Fortis in memory of his young daughter Corellia Optata, aged thirteen years, is so beautiful, and appears to shed a ray of hope beyond the grave, that one may almost imagine that he had at least some acquaintance with the dogma of the Christian belief. No excuse, therefore, is needed for introducing it here "Secreti Manes, qui regna Acherusia Ditis 1 A sculpture of Mithras has been found near the Roman Wall. (Hodgson's Northumberland, and Bruce's Roman Wall.) |