Teutates, or Toutatis, is one of the many names of ancient Celtic gods that has been transmitted down through the millennia. But unlike the Greeks and Romans, who wrote extensively about the gods, the Celts left almost no written records about their deities. Consequently, we have to piece together the character and importance of this god from fragmentary pieces of evidence, mostly provided by outsiders observing Celtic culture.
Etymology: Protector of the Tribe
From an etymological perspective, the name Teutates seems to derive from the proto-Celtic word “teuta,” which simply means tribe. This word also shows up in later Celtic mythology in Ireland, with the legendary Tuatha, the original tribe of gods.
On the basis of this evidence, and the appearance of the name of the god, in numerous variations, across the Celtic world has led to the suggestion that it was not the personal name of a specific god, but a generic name given to whichever god was considered the “protector of the tribe.”
This may be supported by evidence left behind by Celts active in the Roman world, mainly in the Roman military, who dedicated numerous votive altars to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Teutanus. Jupiter was the principal god of the Roman Empire and could be considered the protector of the Roman tribe.
Roman Syncretism: Mercury or Mars
Teutates appears in Roman literature, which suggests that Teutates must have been a very important Celtic deity to be noted by the Romans. Especially because he is one of the few gods that the Romans referred to by his native name, rather than just assigning him a comparable Roman god.
The Roman poet Lucan in his epic Pharsalia, mentioned the gods Teutates, Esus, and Taranus as gods that received human sacrifices from the Celts. They made these sacrifices while rejoicing Caesar withdrawing his troops.
While that is the limit of what Lucan says, further information is given in Scholia commentaries on Lucan’s texts for students, composed in the 11th or 12th centuries but believed to be based on a range of older sources. The Commenta Bernensia as Lucan (1.445) says that Teutates was the equivalent of Mercury, the Roman messenger god, and was appeased with human sacrifices that saw a man lowered head first into a small barrel until he suffocated. But the same text also says that he was the equivalent of Mars, the Roman god of war, and appeased with blood offerings. It is unclear whether this is meant to be the blood of the battlefield or human sacrifice.
While this might seem like two very different identifications, it is not without precedent. When talking about the Germans they observed, the Romans identified Wodin, who would become the Norse god Odin, with Mercury. This is despite the fact that Odin was the Norse god of war. The Romans presumably had reasons to identify foreign war gods with Mercury.
Many inscriptions survive with dedications to Mars Teutates, confirming that he was considered a god of war.
Human Sacrifice
The human sacrifice described in the Scholia has been compared with a scene visible on the Gundestrup Cauldron, a Celtic artifact found in Denmark and probably dating to the 1st century BCE, of a large man immersing a warrior head first into a container. Unfortunately, it is unclear what this scene on the cup represents.
Some modern scholars have also linked the ritual described and depicted with the deposit of bodies in bogs, which is strongly believed to have been an important ritual practice among the Celts and others.
Examples of bog bodies have been discovered across Europe from Crete in the south, Norway in the north, Russia in the east, and Ireland in the west. There are over 1,500 bog remains in museums today, representing both genders and a range of ages, including babies. Based on carbon dating, some were deposited during the Neolithic period and others are surprisingly recent, but most date to between 200 BCE and 500 CE.
It has been suggested that bog burials were a form of execution for the worst social offenders. This I based on a passage in Tacitus’ Germania, which recounts his understanding of German culture at the time, in which he specifically states that bog burials were a form of judicial punishment, conducted publicly as a form of ritual sacrifice. This aligns with the fact that most people buried in bogs seem to have been killed in a brutal fashion or mutilated after death. They were often strangled, hung, stabbed, sliced, and beaten.
One of the most famous bog bodies is Lindow Man, found in Cheshire in Britain. He was a young man who was well groomed, but when he died, he seems to have been kicked in the back to be brought to his knees and then garrotted, and then had his throat slit, neck broken, and the base of his head hit with a heavy object, before being thrown into the bog with some breath still in his lungs. This aligns with Irish bog bodies, including Oldcoghan Man and Clinycavan Man, who both had their bodies mutilated after death, including having their nipples cut off.
Another body survives from Silkeborg I Denmark and is known as Tollund Man. He is quite different. He was wearing a hat and a belt, but no other clothing, and he had a plaited leather thong wrapped tightly around his neck. While he was hung, it was not with this particular leather strap, which seems to have been placed on the body after he was already dead.
But this scene circles back to the Gundestrup Cauldron, as the people on the vessel wear similar decorations around their necks and headdresses. This suggests that the cap and leather thong may have been part of a ceremonial costume.
If these types of big bodies can be linked to Teutates, it would confirm that he was considered an extremely important and powerful god. Unfortunately, the connection is only speculative.
TOT Rings
The god has also been linked with 68 rings wound in Roman England, dating to the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE, around Lincolnshire. Each of the rings is inscribed with the letters TOT, believed to be an abbreviation of the god’s name, as Roman rings were often inscribed with three-letter abbreviations of divine names.
Rings were a common votive offering to the gods made by the people living in Britain at the time. They have been found deposited in homes, fields, on hilltops, in rivers, wetlands, and in ritual shafts and wells.
The number of these rings in Lincolnshire seems to confirm the importance of the god to the Celtic people living in the region, but throws little additional life on the character of the god.
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