Tasgetius
Encyclopedia
Tasgetius, the Latinized form of Gaulish Tasgetios or Tasgiitios (d. 54 BC), was a ruler of the Carnutes
, a Celtic polity
whose territory corresponded roughly with the modern French departments of Eure-et-Loire, Loiret
, and Loire-et-Cher. Julius Caesar
says that as Roman proconsul
he made Tasgetius king in reward for his support during the Gallic Wars
. His reign would have begun in late 57 BC, following Caesar's campaign against the Belgic
civitates
in northern Gaul
that year; it ended with his assassination in 54 BC. The overthrow of a king appointed by Caesar was one of the precipitating events that led to the pan-Gallic rebellion of 52 BC
under the Arverni
an leader Vercingetorix
.
The land of the Carnutes was regarded as the sacred center of Gaul
where each year the druidry held their pan-Gallic synod
. Like several other of the larger polities in Gaul, the Carnutes had once been ruled by kings, but seem to have adopted an oligarchic
or proto-republic
an form of government. Rome often found it more convenient to deal with client state
s through centralizing power in a king rather than a fractious council or "senate," as Caesar often refers to such bodies on analogy with the Roman senate
. The ancestors of Tasgetius had held supreme power, and his ascent was presented as a restoration. The Carnutes had perhaps preferred not to live under a monarchy again, since Caesar's royal appointment was assassinated by his fellow citizens. Caesar attributes opposition to Tasgetius to an anti-Roman faction among the Carnutes, but it has been argued that the normal internal politics of Gaul were at play, which Caesar chose to exploit for his own purposes and propagandize as symptoms of a brewing rebellion.
Caesar says that the Carnutes were assigned to the Remi
, Rome's most loyal Belgic ally, as a client state; George Long thought this was probably a consequence of Tasgetius's murder. These formal relations existed usually among contiguous polities, but the territory of the Remi (roughly modern-day Champagne
) was at some remove from that of the Carnutes.
(benevolentia) he had shown the proconsul. The word benevolentia appears only twice in the Bellum Gallicum; in Book 7, Caesar insists on his own goodwill toward the Aedui
, despite their having joined the opposition to Rome. In Latin usage contemporary with Caesar, the word is common in the letters and philosophical works of Cicero
, who prefers it to the benignitas ("kindness") more likely to be encountered in other sources. Beneficia are kindnesses or good deeds, favors or good works; benevolentia is a cast of mind, a voluntary state of inclination that makes friendship possible. Writing about ten years after the death of Tasgetius, Cicero defines friendship as "a relationship based on agreement about all human and divine matters
, together with goodwill (benevolentia) and affection." But benevolentia, as a predisposition to form social relationships, also has an inherently utilitarian side, and after noting the benevolentia of Tasgetius, Caesar immediately remarks on his usefulness (usus).
Tasgetius is one of only six individuals that Caesar praises in his Gallic war commentaries for virtus
, the quality of true manhood (Latin vir, "man"), usually translated as "virtue" or "valor." The only other man from independent Gaul said to possess virtus is Commius
of the Atrebates
, whom Caesar also installed as king but who chose during the Gallic uprising to assert the sovereignty
of his people. Although virtus is an active and potentially aggressive quality, benevolentia belongs to a class of Roman virtues characteristic of those who are kind, generous, and humane.
, such as Tascos, Tasgillus, Tassca, and Tasciovanus ("Badger Killer"), as well as in place names. Moritasgus ("Great Badger" or "Sea Badger") was the name of a ruler of the Senones
contemporary with Tasgetius, and was also the name of a Celtic healing deity in territory within the Aeduan
sphere of influence (see Moritasgus
). Another Celtic word for "badger," broccos, also yields a number of personal and place names.
The substance taxea or adeps taxonina, "badger fat," was regarded as medically potent and traded by Germanic
and Celtic peoples to the Greeks and Romans. The 4th-century medical writer Marcellus
, who was from Bordeaux
and whose book De medicamentis is a unique source for Gallic herbology and lore, includes badger fat as an ingredient in his pharmacological recipes. A short 5th-century treatise De taxone deals with the magico-medical properties of the badger, and prescribes the correct incantations to utter when dissecting the animal. It is perhaps a reference to the badger's medicinal or mythic properties that the Irish saint Molaise
descended to hell
dressed in badger skins to rescue a leper
.
Although Isidore of Seville
understands the word as equivalent to Latin lardum, "bacon, lard," taxea is a secretion of the badger's subcaudal glands comparable in its medicinal use to the better-known castoreum
, an ingredient from the scent sacs of the beaver
. Only the European species of badger possesses these subcaudal glands, which produce a pale-yellow fatty substance with a gentle musky scent. Like the beaver, the badger was regarded in the classical tradition
as one of the hermaphroditic animals.
Primary among the medical uses of taxea was the treatment of impotence, which casts a different swagger on a phrase from the Latin comic poet Afranius
: "The cloaked Gaul, fattened up on badger grease." The Gaulish word tasgos may be related to an Indo-European root meaning "peg, stake," because of the badger's pointed nose; it has been argued that the root can also have a phallic meaning, and that the use of taxea for impotence was thus a form of sympathetic magic
.
Although its cultural significance among the Celts of Gaul is murky, the badger appears much later as a totem
animal for Tadhg mac Céin, a legendary insular Celtic king whose name contains an Old Irish form for "badger." The totemic and phallic power of the badger among the Celts may be faintly discernible in the traditional badger-head ornament on the modern-era Scottish Highland
sporran
, a pouch worn over the front of the kilt, originally perhaps to protect the genitalia. In Welsh lore
, a number of games involved "playing badger," including in the first book of the Mabinogion
where the game Broch ygkot ("a badger in a bag") is explained cryptically as "let him who is a head be a bridge." The narrative is presented as an aetiology of the game, involving two rivals for Rhiannon
, her first husband Pwyll
who carelessly loses her to Gwawl
, and a magic bag that is Rhiannon's gift to Pwyll. The bag cannot be filled no matter how much food is put in it, and generosity can meet only with insatiability. Gwawl thinks that he can gain some infinite quality by climbing into the bag himself; thus captured, he receives beatings instead.
ening, appears on numerous examples of a bronze coin assumed to be issued by Caesar's friend. The coin depicts on its obverse
a crowned head of "Apollo
" with a three-lobed ivy
leaf, a usual symbol of Dionysus
, and the name or cult title ΕΛΚΕSΟΟΥΙΞ (Elkesovix). A winged horse, usually called "Pegasus
" in numismatic
literature, appears on the reverse with the name Tasgiitios.
The obverse has been seen as imitating a Roman denarius
of the gens Titia
. Although a winged horse appeared on Celtic coins as early as the 3rd century BC, during the period 60–50 BC the Roman moneyer
Quintus Titius issued a series of denarii with Pegasus on the reverse and various figures on the obverse, including Apollo, a winged Victory
, and a bearded figure sometimes identified as the Roman phallic god Mutunus Tutunus
. The Apollo denarius of Titius may have been the model for Tasgetius's issue, and the name Elkesovix has been interpreted as an epithet of Apollo, or as that of Tasgetius's grandfather or other ancestor. The appearance of an Apollo on the coin of the badger-named Tasgetius, and the "badger" semantic element in the name Moritasgus for a god equated with Apollo, raises the question of whether the god of healing was associated in Celtic religion and myth with an animal used in healing.
A coin of the Suessiones
dated ca. 60–50 BC — that is, roughly contemporary with that of Tasgetius — also depicts a winged horse on the reverse, which appears with the name Cricironus. The profile of the helmeted head on the obverse faces left instead of right. Tasgetius's series has been studied in connection with the coins of Commius
, the Atrebatan
king also supported by Caesar.
A hoard discovered in 1956 at the fork of a Gallic road included coins of Tasgetius. It is estimated to have been buried in 51 BC. The coins may have been hidden by refugee Carnutes during the last campaigns of the Gallic Wars in Belgica, as narrated by Aulus Hirtius
in his continuation (Book 8) of Caesar's commentaries.
Carnutes
The Carnutes, a powerful Celtic people in the heart of independent Gaul, dwelled in a particularly extensive territory between the Sequana and the Liger rivers. Their lands later corresponded to the dioceses of Chartres, Orléans and Blois, that is, the greater part of the modern departments of...
, a Celtic polity
Polity
Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...
whose territory corresponded roughly with the modern French departments of Eure-et-Loire, Loiret
Loiret
Loiret is a department in north-central FranceThe department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.- History :...
, and Loire-et-Cher. Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
says that as Roman proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
he made Tasgetius king in reward for his support during the Gallic Wars
Gallic Wars
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. They lasted from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the...
. His reign would have begun in late 57 BC, following Caesar's campaign against the Belgic
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
civitates
Civitas
In the history of Rome, the Latin term civitas , according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law . It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other...
in northern Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
that year; it ended with his assassination in 54 BC. The overthrow of a king appointed by Caesar was one of the precipitating events that led to the pan-Gallic rebellion of 52 BC
Battle of Alesia
The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia took place in September, 52 BC around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia, a major town centre and hill fort of the Mandubii tribe...
under the Arverni
Arverni
The Arverni were a Gallic tribe living in what is now the Auvergne region of France during the last centuries BC. One of the most powerful tribes in ancient Gaul, they opposed the Romans on several occasions...
an leader Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix was the chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars....
.
Caesar's account
Caesar gives only a succinct account of Tasgetius's reign and death:Political background
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
where each year the druidry held their pan-Gallic synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
. Like several other of the larger polities in Gaul, the Carnutes had once been ruled by kings, but seem to have adopted an oligarchic
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
or proto-republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
an form of government. Rome often found it more convenient to deal with client state
Client state
Client state is one of several terms used to describe the economic, political and/or military subordination of one state to a more powerful state in international affairs...
s through centralizing power in a king rather than a fractious council or "senate," as Caesar often refers to such bodies on analogy with the Roman senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
. The ancestors of Tasgetius had held supreme power, and his ascent was presented as a restoration. The Carnutes had perhaps preferred not to live under a monarchy again, since Caesar's royal appointment was assassinated by his fellow citizens. Caesar attributes opposition to Tasgetius to an anti-Roman faction among the Carnutes, but it has been argued that the normal internal politics of Gaul were at play, which Caesar chose to exploit for his own purposes and propagandize as symptoms of a brewing rebellion.
Caesar says that the Carnutes were assigned to the Remi
Remi
The Remi were a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul in the 1st century BC. They occupied the northern Champagne plain, on the southern fringes of the Forest of Ardennes, between the rivers Mosa and Matrona , and along the river valleys of the Aisne and its tributaries the Aire and the Vesle.Their...
, Rome's most loyal Belgic ally, as a client state; George Long thought this was probably a consequence of Tasgetius's murder. These formal relations existed usually among contiguous polities, but the territory of the Remi (roughly modern-day Champagne
Champagne, France
Champagne is a historic province in the northeast of France, now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name.Formerly ruled by the counts of Champagne, its western edge is about 100 miles east of Paris. The cities of Troyes, Reims, and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area...
) was at some remove from that of the Carnutes.
Personal characteristics
Caesar acknowledged the loss of Tasgetius by taking note of the goodwillGood faith
In philosophy, the concept of Good faith—Latin bona fides “good faith”, bona fide “in good faith”—denotes sincere, honest intention or belief, regardless of the outcome of an action; the opposed concepts are bad faith, mala fides and perfidy...
(benevolentia) he had shown the proconsul. The word benevolentia appears only twice in the Bellum Gallicum; in Book 7, Caesar insists on his own goodwill toward the Aedui
Aedui
Aedui, Haedui or Hedui , were a Gallic people of Gallia Lugdunensis, who inhabited the country between the Arar and Liger , in today's France. Their territory thus included the greater part of the modern departments of Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d'Or and Nièvre.-Geography:The country of the Aedui is...
, despite their having joined the opposition to Rome. In Latin usage contemporary with Caesar, the word is common in the letters and philosophical works of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, who prefers it to the benignitas ("kindness") more likely to be encountered in other sources. Beneficia are kindnesses or good deeds, favors or good works; benevolentia is a cast of mind, a voluntary state of inclination that makes friendship possible. Writing about ten years after the death of Tasgetius, Cicero defines friendship as "a relationship based on agreement about all human and divine matters
Res divina
In ancient Rome, res divinae, singular res divina , were the laws that pertained to the religious duties of the state and its officials...
, together with goodwill (benevolentia) and affection." But benevolentia, as a predisposition to form social relationships, also has an inherently utilitarian side, and after noting the benevolentia of Tasgetius, Caesar immediately remarks on his usefulness (usus).
Tasgetius is one of only six individuals that Caesar praises in his Gallic war commentaries for virtus
Virtus
In Roman mythology, Virtus was the deity of bravery and military strength, the personification of the Roman virtue of virtus. The Greek equivalent deity was Arete....
, the quality of true manhood (Latin vir, "man"), usually translated as "virtue" or "valor." The only other man from independent Gaul said to possess virtus is Commius
Commius
Commius was a historical king of the Belgic nation of the Atrebates, initially in Gaul, then in Britain, in the 1st century BC.-Ally of Caesar:...
of the Atrebates
Atrebates
The Atrebates were a Belgic tribe of Gaul and Britain before the Roman conquests.- Name of the tribe :Cognate with Old Irish aittrebaid meaning 'inhabitant', Atrebates comes from proto-Celtic *ad-treb-a-t-es, 'inhabitants'. The Celtic root is treb- 'building', 'home' The Atrebates (singular...
, whom Caesar also installed as king but who chose during the Gallic uprising to assert the sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
of his people. Although virtus is an active and potentially aggressive quality, benevolentia belongs to a class of Roman virtues characteristic of those who are kind, generous, and humane.
Name and Celtic badger lore
The name Tasgetius derives from Gaulish tasgos, also tascos or taxos, "badger," an element found in many other Celtic personal names from inscriptionsEpigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
, such as Tascos, Tasgillus, Tassca, and Tasciovanus ("Badger Killer"), as well as in place names. Moritasgus ("Great Badger" or "Sea Badger") was the name of a ruler of the Senones
Senones
The Senones were an ancient Gaulish tribe.In about 400 BC they crossed the Alps and, having driven out the Umbrians settled on the east coast of Italy from Forlì to Ancona, in the so-called ager Gallicus, and founded the town of Sena Gallica , which became their capital. In 391 BC they invaded...
contemporary with Tasgetius, and was also the name of a Celtic healing deity in territory within the Aeduan
Aedui
Aedui, Haedui or Hedui , were a Gallic people of Gallia Lugdunensis, who inhabited the country between the Arar and Liger , in today's France. Their territory thus included the greater part of the modern departments of Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d'Or and Nièvre.-Geography:The country of the Aedui is...
sphere of influence (see Moritasgus
Moritasgus
Moritasgus is a Celtic epithet for a healing god found in four inscriptions at Alesia. In two inscriptions, he is identified with the Greco-Roman god Apollo. His consort was the goddess Damona....
). Another Celtic word for "badger," broccos, also yields a number of personal and place names.
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
and Celtic peoples to the Greeks and Romans. The 4th-century medical writer Marcellus
Marcellus Empiricus
Marcellus Empiricus, also known as Marcellus Burdigalensis , was a Latin medical writer from Gaul at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. His only extant work is the De medicamentis, a compendium of pharmacological preparations drawing on the work of multiple medical and scientific writers as...
, who was from Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
and whose book De medicamentis is a unique source for Gallic herbology and lore, includes badger fat as an ingredient in his pharmacological recipes. A short 5th-century treatise De taxone deals with the magico-medical properties of the badger, and prescribes the correct incantations to utter when dissecting the animal. It is perhaps a reference to the badger's medicinal or mythic properties that the Irish saint Molaise
Laisrén mac Nad Froích
Saint Laisrén mac Nad Froích , or Laisrén of Devenish, also known by his petname Mo Laisse, was the patron saint of Devenish Island in Lough Erne , near Enniskillen, in the present diocese of Clogher...
descended to hell
Catabasis
Katabasis, or catabasis, is a descent of some type, such as moving downhill, or the sinking of the winds or sun, a military retreat, or a trip to the underworld or a trip from the interior of a country down to the coast...
dressed in badger skins to rescue a leper
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
.
Although Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
understands the word as equivalent to Latin lardum, "bacon, lard," taxea is a secretion of the badger's subcaudal glands comparable in its medicinal use to the better-known castoreum
Castoreum
Castoreum is the exudate from the castor sacs of the mature North American Beaver Castor canadensis and the European Beaver Castor fiber. Within the zoological realm, castoreum is the yellowish secretion of the castor sac in combination with the beaver's urine, used during scent marking of territory...
, an ingredient from the scent sacs of the beaver
European Beaver
The Eurasian beaver or European beaver is a species of beaver, which was once widespread in Eurasia, where it was hunted to near extinction both for fur and for castoreum, a secretion of its scent gland believed to have medicinal properties...
. Only the European species of badger possesses these subcaudal glands, which produce a pale-yellow fatty substance with a gentle musky scent. Like the beaver, the badger was regarded in the classical tradition
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
as one of the hermaphroditic animals.
Primary among the medical uses of taxea was the treatment of impotence, which casts a different swagger on a phrase from the Latin comic poet Afranius
Lucius Afranius (poet)
Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman comic poet, who lived at the beginning of the 1st century BC. His comedies described Roman scenes and manners and the subjects were mostly taken from the life of the lower classes...
: "The cloaked Gaul, fattened up on badger grease." The Gaulish word tasgos may be related to an Indo-European root meaning "peg, stake," because of the badger's pointed nose; it has been argued that the root can also have a phallic meaning, and that the use of taxea for impotence was thus a form of sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...
.
Although its cultural significance among the Celts of Gaul is murky, the badger appears much later as a totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
animal for Tadhg mac Céin, a legendary insular Celtic king whose name contains an Old Irish form for "badger." The totemic and phallic power of the badger among the Celts may be faintly discernible in the traditional badger-head ornament on the modern-era Scottish Highland
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
sporran
Sporran
The Sporran is a traditional part of male Scottish Highland dress. It is a pouch that performs the same function as pockets on the pocketless Scottish kilt....
, a pouch worn over the front of the kilt, originally perhaps to protect the genitalia. In Welsh lore
Welsh mythology
Welsh mythology, the remnants of the mythology of the pre-Christian Britons, has come down to us in much altered form in medieval Welsh manuscripts such as the Red Book of Hergest, the White Book of Rhydderch, the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin....
, a number of games involved "playing badger," including in the first book of the Mabinogion
Mabinogion
The Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
where the game Broch ygkot ("a badger in a bag") is explained cryptically as "let him who is a head be a bridge." The narrative is presented as an aetiology of the game, involving two rivals for Rhiannon
Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a prominent figure in Welsh mythology, mother to the Demetian hero Pryderi and wife to Pwyll . She is probably a reflex of the Celtic Great Queen goddess Rigantona and may also be associated with the horse goddess Epona.She appears in both the first and third branches of the Mabinogi...
, her first husband Pwyll
Pwyll
Pwyll Pen Annwn is a prominent figure in Welsh mythology and literature, the lord of Dyfed, husband of Rhiannon and father of the hero Pryderi...
who carelessly loses her to Gwawl
Gwawl
In Welsh mythology, Gwawl was the son of Clud, and tricks Pwyll into promising him Rhiannon. She decides to marry Pwyll instead. Gwawl is only mentioned in the First Branch of the Mabinogi...
, and a magic bag that is Rhiannon's gift to Pwyll. The bag cannot be filled no matter how much food is put in it, and generosity can meet only with insatiability. Gwawl thinks that he can gain some infinite quality by climbing into the bag himself; thus captured, he receives beatings instead.
Numismatics
Tasgiitios, with the double i representing vowel lengthVowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
ening, appears on numerous examples of a bronze coin assumed to be issued by Caesar's friend. The coin depicts on its obverse
Obverse and reverse
Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags , seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse...
a crowned head of "Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
" with a three-lobed ivy
Ivy
Ivy, plural ivies is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan and Taiwan.-Description:On level ground they...
leaf, a usual symbol of Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, and the name or cult title ΕΛΚΕSΟΟΥΙΞ (Elkesovix). A winged horse, usually called "Pegasus
Pegasus
Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...
" in numismatic
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
literature, appears on the reverse with the name Tasgiitios.
The obverse has been seen as imitating a Roman denarius
Denarius
In the Roman currency system, the denarius was a small silver coin first minted in 211 BC. It was the most common coin produced for circulation but was slowly debased until its replacement by the antoninianus...
of the gens Titia
Titia (gens)
The gens Titia was a plebeian family at Rome. The gens is rarely mentioned in the Republican period, and did not rise out of obscurity till a very late time...
. Although a winged horse appeared on Celtic coins as early as the 3rd century BC, during the period 60–50 BC the Roman moneyer
Moneyer
A moneyer is someone who physically creates money. Moneyers have a long tradition, dating back at least to ancient Greece. They became most prominent in the Roman Republic, continuing into the empire.-Roman Republican moneyers:...
Quintus Titius issued a series of denarii with Pegasus on the reverse and various figures on the obverse, including Apollo, a winged Victory
Victoria (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion, Victoria was the personified goddess of victory. She is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike, and was associated with Bellona. She was adapted from the Sabine agricultural goddess Vacuna and had a temple on the Palatine Hill...
, and a bearded figure sometimes identified as the Roman phallic god Mutunus Tutunus
Mutunus Tutunus
In ancient Roman religion, Mutunus Tutunus or Mutinus Titinus was a phallic marriage deity, in some respects equated with Priapus. His shrine was located on the Velian Hill, supposedly since the founding of Rome, until the 1st century BC....
. The Apollo denarius of Titius may have been the model for Tasgetius's issue, and the name Elkesovix has been interpreted as an epithet of Apollo, or as that of Tasgetius's grandfather or other ancestor. The appearance of an Apollo on the coin of the badger-named Tasgetius, and the "badger" semantic element in the name Moritasgus for a god equated with Apollo, raises the question of whether the god of healing was associated in Celtic religion and myth with an animal used in healing.
A coin of the Suessiones
Suessiones
The Suessiones were a Belgic tribe of Western Belgium in the 1st century BC, inhabiting the region between the Oise and the Marne, based around the present-day city of Soissons...
dated ca. 60–50 BC — that is, roughly contemporary with that of Tasgetius — also depicts a winged horse on the reverse, which appears with the name Cricironus. The profile of the helmeted head on the obverse faces left instead of right. Tasgetius's series has been studied in connection with the coins of Commius
Commius
Commius was a historical king of the Belgic nation of the Atrebates, initially in Gaul, then in Britain, in the 1st century BC.-Ally of Caesar:...
, the Atrebatan
Atrebates
The Atrebates were a Belgic tribe of Gaul and Britain before the Roman conquests.- Name of the tribe :Cognate with Old Irish aittrebaid meaning 'inhabitant', Atrebates comes from proto-Celtic *ad-treb-a-t-es, 'inhabitants'. The Celtic root is treb- 'building', 'home' The Atrebates (singular...
king also supported by Caesar.
A hoard discovered in 1956 at the fork of a Gallic road included coins of Tasgetius. It is estimated to have been buried in 51 BC. The coins may have been hidden by refugee Carnutes during the last campaigns of the Gallic Wars in Belgica, as narrated by Aulus Hirtius
Aulus Hirtius
Aulus Hirtius was one of the consuls of the Roman Republic and a writer on military subjects.He was known to have been a legate of Julius Caesar's starting around 54 BC and served as an envoy to Pompey in 50. During the Roman Civil Wars he served in Spain, he might have been a tribune in 48, and...
in his continuation (Book 8) of Caesar's commentaries.
External links
- The coin of Tasgiitios (Tasgetius), British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, The Oxford Celtic Coin Index