Teutates: a Brythonic and Gaulish God (Father of the Tribe)

Synonyms:
Gaul, Bryth: Father of the Tribe

Teutates is another well-known Celtic deity, mostly due to the writings of Julius Caesar and Lucan. In his De Bello Gallica (On the Gallic Wars) Julius Caesar describes the most revered Gaulish deity as 'Mercury'. Again we are left to Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus), to name this deity as Teutates. In the first book of his Pharsalia (Civil War) Lucan has this to say about the major Gaulish gods:

Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Esus
 et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae. 
uos quoque, qui fortes animas belloque peremptas

Savage Teutates, Esus’ bloody shrines
and Taranis’ altar, cruel as those
loved by Diana, whom the Scythians serve;
All these destroyed in war…

Based on writings in the ninth century commentary on Lucan, the Berne Scholia describes Teutates' victims as being immersed in basins until they drowned. This god is linked with Mercury, thus making the identification with Julius Caesar's Gallic 'Mercury' possible. The image of sacrificial victims to Teutates being drowned or suffocated has linked this deity to the image on the Gundestrup Cauldron where a giant figure plunges a man into a cauldron or vat. Though, as has been examined already (see the entry on Brân Fendigaidd the scene could just as easily represent the cauldron of regeneration. Which is not to say that sacrifices to the gods were not performed in Celtic society. Indeed, the discovery in 1984 of the corpse of a fourth century man in the bog at Lindow Moss, Cheshire. The excellent preservation of the body shows him to have been ritually strangled, blugeoned and drowned before having his throat cut. The manner of his death indicates him to have been a well-born sacrificial victim and the strangulation and drowning make him a potential sacrifice to Teutates. The manner of his death is also reminiscent of the deaths of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and of Lailoken.

Inscriptional evidence invoking Toutatis has been found at Rome in Italy, where he is asssimilated with Medurinis. Further insrcriptions have been found at Seckau in Austria which reads MARTI LATOBIO MARMOGIO SINATI TOUTATI MOG[et]IO C[aius] VAL[erius] [v]ALERINVS EX VOTO (To Mars Latobius, Marmogius, Sinatis, Toutatis, Mogetius. Caius Vaerius Valerinus [offers this] in fulfilment of his vows). Here Toutatis is assimilated with Mars Latobius Sinatis and Mogetius. All the remaining inscriptions to Toutatis come from Britain. These include an inscription on a sandstone altar [RIB 1017] from the Cumberland Quarries, Cumberland which states: RIOCALAT ET TOVTAT MAR COCIDO VOTO FECIT VITALIS ([to] Riocalatis and Toutatis, Mars Cocidius, Vitalis made this vow). A silver anastate plate from a Romano-British temple at Barkway, Hertfordshire bears the following inscription [RIB 219]: MARTI TOVTATI TI CLAVDIVS PRIMVS ATTI LIBER VSLM (For Mars Toutatis Titus Claudius Primus Atti[cus?], freedman, willingly and deservedly fulfils a vow). At York, and Thetford in Norfolk and Willoughby-on-the-Wolds, Nottinghamshire, Celtic rings have been found bearing the inscription TOT, indicating that ths stands for 'Toutatis or Teutates'. In addition a potsherd from Kelvedon in Essex bearing the name 'Totates' has also been found. From the inscriptional evidence it would seem that Teutates was linked to the Roman deity Mars by Interpretato Romana though the Berne Commentary linked him to Mercury. However various other potsherds from Kelvedon depicted mounted wariors and progressions of footsoldiers bearing native hexagonal shields. This seems to points towards Teutates having a martial function. Apart from this the evidence as to Teutates' function and attributes are very slim. Indeed, for a god depicted by the Romans as a major Gaulish deity there is very little inscriptional evidence for Teutates' inscription and the majority of what we have originated in Britain.

Etymologically this deity's name is very closse to that of Toutenus and whilst Toutenus' name can be interpreted as: 'He who belongs to the Tribe' Teutates' name can be derived from the reconstructed protot-Celtic elements: *teutā- (people, tribe) and *tato- (father) giving us 'Father of the Tribe'. This, along with Teutates' assimilation with Mars would indicated that this deity's function was as a tribal protector. Though in all likelihood the name may well have been a title rather than the name of a deity. Thus each tribe or grouping would have had their own Teutates known by a specific name.

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