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Baco (also Bacon) is a Gaulish Celtic god. He is perhaps a god of bacon or of beech.
Attestation
[edit]Epigraphy
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 The Chalon-sur-Saône inscription at Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby. |
The first clear attestation of the god Baco comes from an inscription was discovered in 1852, while workers were demolishing some old Roman fortifications in Chalon-sur-Saône. The inscription has been dated to between 69 to 96 AD and is a dedication to Baco by a decurion in the Roman cavalry.[1][2]: 231–232 The inscription reads as follows:
Deo Baconi / G(aius!) Lautius I[3] / Sabinus / decurio alae I / Flaviae [Geminae][1]
A very fragmentary inscription from Eauze, Gers has also been thought to attest the genitive "Ba/conis",[3]: 224 but this reading has been contradicted by the editors of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, who reconstruct the phrase as "Ba[lex]/conis",[4] and by Paul Lebel who emends the transcription to "Bagoni".[5]: 25
Life of St. Marcel
[edit]A temple to Baco is attested in a late antique saint's life of Marcel de Chalon. Marcel de Chalon was martyred in Chalon-sur-Saône under Marcus Aurelius, in 177 and 179 AD. The passage is as follows:
Deinde ad solis imaginem, quae intra muros Sequanicae portae errore gentilium praecipuo colebatur, nec non ad atrium devi Baconis, ubi effigies olovitrea celso columnae adorabatur collocata fastigio, in secundo miliario civitatis praeside iubente perducitur.[6]
The survival of a Gallic god, so little attested in epigraphy, in a late antique narrative text is remarkable. In later manuscripts, confused scribes corrupted the phrase devi Baconis variously to divi Hamonis, Decubaconis, Divionis, and Divibavonis. The close connection between Marcel and Chalon-sur-Saône justifies the reading devi Baconis.[5]: 25
Etymology
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b CIL XIII, 02603
- ^ Canat, M. Marcel (1856). "Inscriptions Antiques de la Ville de Chalon-sur-Saône". Mémoires de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Châlon-sur-Saône. 12: 217–272.
- ^ Vendryes, Joseph (1949). "Review: Lantier, Hubert, Les Origines de l'art français". Etudes Celtiques. 5 (1): 223–225.
- ^ CIL XIII, 00557
- ^ a b Lajoye, Patrice (2008). Des dieux gaulois: petits essais de mythologie. Budapest: Archaeolingua. ISBN 978-963-8046-92-5.
- ^ Olmsted, Garrett S. (2017). "Baco". The Gods of the Celts and the Indo-Europeans (Revised ed.).
- ^ Armand-Calliat, L. (1941). "A propos du dieu Bacon" (PDF). Annales de Bourgogne. 13: 27–30.
- ^ Dinet, Ch.-L. (1861). Saint Symphorien et son culte, avec tous les souvenirs qui s'y rattachent... M. Dejussieu. pp. 143–44.
- ^ Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Éditions Errance. ISBN 2-87772-237-6.
Further reading
[edit]- Guyonvarc'h, Christian J. "Notes d'étymologie et de lexicographie gauloises et celtiques, XIX, 70: Gaulois Baco/Bago, le dieu "distributeur"?" Ogam XVI (1964): 194-199.
- Benoît, Fernand Mars et Mercure. Nouvelles recherches sur l’interprétation gauloise des divinités romaines (1959)
- Lelu, Jean-Paul "Une autre trace du souvenir du dieu celtique Baco" Mythologie française 190-191 (1998): 111.
- Remy, Bernard "Baginus, les déesses Baginatiae et les déesses mères Baginienses chez les Voconces, Jupiter Baginas dans la cité de Vienne" in W. Spickermann (ed.) Keltische Göt individuelle Option? Rahden/Westfalen: Verlag Leidorf GmbH (2013), pp. 213-221.