Teutates
Teutates (spelled variously Toutatis, Totatis, Totates) is a Celtic god attested in literary and epigraphic sources.
The Roman poet Lucan's epic Pharsalia mentions Teutates, Esus, and Taranis as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans.
Almost as often commented on are the scholia to Lucan's poem (early medieval, but relying on earlier sources) which tell us the nature of these sacrifices: in particular, that victims of Teutates were immersed headfirst into a small barrel and drowned.
This sacrifice has been compared with a poorly understood ritual depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron, some motifs in Irish mythology, and the death of the bog body known as the Lindow Man.
However, this explanation is problematic, insofar as it assumes haplology (omission of a syllable) in the development of the word and requires that the "a" be short (which conflicts with Lucan's scansion).
[7]: 51 If it is an attestation of the god's name, the spelling "Tutate" on a 5th-century CE inscription from Poitiers may show a later vowel development from /o/ to /u/.
[7]: 54 [9] Jürgen Zeidler [de] argues against this contention on the grounds that the suffix "-ati-" is uncommon; if the name was derived independently in each case, we would expect more variants along the lines of "tribal father" (for example, *teut-ater-, *teut-atta-, or *teuto-genos).
The passage relevant to Teutates occurs in "Gallic excursus", an epic catalogue detailing the rejoicing of the various Gaulish peoples after Julius Caesar removed his legions from Gaul (where they were intended to control the natives) to Italy.
[1]: 296 Tu quoque laetatus converti proelia, Trevir, Et nunc tonse Ligur, quondam per colla decore Crinibus effusis toti praelate Comatae; Et quibus inmitis placatur sanguine diro Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Esus Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae.
[12] Transferral of the warfare pleased you too, Treviri, and you, Ligures, now shorn of hair but once in all of Long-Haired Gaul unrivalled for your tresses flowing gracefully over your necks; and the people who with grim blood-offering placate Teutates the merciless and Esus dread with savage altars and the slab of Taranis, no kinder than Diana of the Scythians.
[13] The substance of the last few lines is this: unspecified Gauls, who made human sacrifices to their gods Teutates, Esus, and Taranis, were overjoyed by the exit of Caesar's troops from their territory.
This departure from classical practice likely had poetic intent: emphasising the barbarity and exoticness the Gauls, whom Caesar had left to their own devices.
[1]: 298 Some scholars, such as Jan de Vries, have argued that the three gods mentioned together here (Esus, Teutates, and Taranis) formed a divine triad in ancient Gaulish religion.
[1]: 332 The sacrifice to Teutates described here has been repeatedly linked to the image on the Gundestrup cauldron of a large man immersing a warrior headfirst into a container.
[23] Jan de Vries connected this ritual with the habit of Irish heroes of drowning themselves in vessels when locked in a burning house.
[15]: 532 The scholiast of the Commenta, however, notes that other sources give an interpretatio of Teutates as Mars,[f] Roman god of war.
[45]: 107 The cult of Teutates is poorly attested in Gaul; the only certain inscriptions are on a stylus from Jort and five fragments of pottery from Beauclair.
[45]: 107 Emil Hübner, in an 1877 supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, was the first to propose that these three letters should be thought of as an abbreviation of the deity-name Tot(atis).
[27] This suggestion was thereafter taken up by Anne Ross, Martin Henig and Jack Ogden, and Adam Daubney (of the Portable Antiquities Scheme).
