Editing Cernunnos (section)

==Cernunnos and ''interpretatio romana''==
[[File:Autel de Cernunnos, sculpture, 1er siècle.jpg|thumb|Altar from [[Reims]] with Cernunnos in between [[Apollo]] and [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]].]]
The process of ''[[interpretatio romana]]'', by which the Romans identified and syncretised gods of foreign cults with gods of their own pantheon, is one which Cernunnos seems to have been peculiarly resistant to. He has been compared in this respect with [[Epona]] and [[Sucellus]], other [[Gallo-Roman]] gods with distinctive iconographies, though unlike them his iconography predates the Roman conquest.<ref name=Webster/>{{rp|222}} Cernunnos is not paired with any Greco-Roman god in epigraphy,<ref name=Webster>{{cite journal |last=Webster |first=Jane |title=Creolizing the Roman Provinces |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |date=April 2001 |volume=105 |issue=2 |pages=209–225 |doi=10.2307/507271 |jstor=507271 |url=https://www.academia.edu/110612115 }}</ref>{{rp|221}} with the possible exception of the Dacia inscription.<ref name=LeRoux/>{{rp|328}} The iconography of Cernunnos occasionally borrows from that of Mercury,<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|104}} and the representation of Cernunnos on the Vendœuvres relief seems to have been influenced by depictions of [[Jupiter Dolichenus]].<ref name=Blazquez/>{{rp|842}}<ref name=Bober>{{cite journal |last=Bober |first=Phyllis Pray |jstor=501179 |title=Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |volume=55 |issue=1 |date=January 1951 |pages=13–51 |doi=10.2307/501179 }}</ref>{{rp|51}} However, even when paired with Roman deities (as on the Reims altar), Cernunnos's iconography is distinctly Celtic.<ref name=Webster/>{{rp|fn 113}} It has been suggested that this was because there was no clear Roman equivalent to Cernunnos.<ref>{{cite book |last=Van Andringa |first=William |chapter=Religion and the Integration of Cities in the Empire in the Second Century AD: The Creation of a Common Religious Language |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/12078950 |doi=10.1002/9780470690970.ch7 |title=A Companion to Roman Religion |editor-last=Rüpke |editor-first=Jörg |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2007 |pages=83–95 |isbn=978-1-4051-2943-5 }}</ref>{{rp|88}}

Cernunnos does not appear in any ancient sources under his native name.<ref name=Blazquez/>{{rp|839}} Some passages from ancient authors referring to Celtic gods under Greek or Roman names (per the usual ''interpretatio romana'' or ''graeca'') have been tentatively connected with Cernunnos. [[Caesar]]'s remark that the Gauls regarded themselves as descendants of [[Gaulish Dis Pater|a god he likened to Dis Pater]] (Roman god of the underworld) has occasioned much comment. Though Sucellus is the  Gaulish god most commonly identified as behind Dis Pater in this passage, Cernunnos has also been considered as a candidate.<ref name=Hofeneder1/>{{rp|210}} Bober has argued that Cernunnos was a "[[chthonic]]-fertility" god, like Dis Pater, and therefore that this was a natural identification to make.<ref name=Bober/>{{rp|44}} A story about the Roman general [[Sertorius]] (reported by [[Plutarch]], among others) describes Sertorius's attempts to take advantage of local [[Lusitanians|Lusitanian]] religious feeling by declaring a white doe a gift of [[Artemis]] (Greek goddess of the hunt) and pretending he could use it for [[divination]]. The Lusitanians were Celts, and it has been suggested by David Rankin that the god behind this Lusitanian Artemis was Cernunnos.<ref name=Hofeneder2>{{cite book |title=Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen |volume=2 |last=Hofeneder |first=Andreas |date=2008 |location=Wien |publisher=Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften }}</ref>{{rp|558–559}} Rankin has also suggested that Cernunnos and [[Smertrios]] lay behind the Greek historian [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus]]'s description of a cult of the [[Dioscuri]] among the oceanic Celts, though Andreas Hofeneder regards this as unprovable.<ref name=Hofeneder1>{{cite book |title=Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen |volume=1 |last=Hofeneder |first=Andreas |date=2005 |location=Wien |publisher=Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften }}</ref>{{rp|59–60}}