Goddesses as Consorts of the Healing Gods in Gallia Belgica and the Germaniae: Forms of Cult and Ritual Practices

Abstract

Healing gods have traditionally been analysed on their own within their sanctuaries. Moreover, few scholars have paid attention to their feminine consorts in the western part of the Roman Empire, and even fewer have studied the Northern provinces, such as Gallia Belgica and the Germaniae. In these provinces, which counted hundreds of feminine deities, six goddesses can be identified as consorts of the healing gods.

This article identifies the function of the god, the kind of uncovered offerings made to the god, the organisation of the sanctuary, and the presence of thermal facilities where water was utilized in the healing process as criteria which we can use to determine whether a goddess was a consort of a healing god or not. In the course of my argument, several realities of the consort of the healing gods become apparent. For instance, divinities can be goddesses of the spring, highlighting the remarkable characteristics of the water or of the spring, or can be goddesses embodying the recovered health, i.e the Salus – although there are very few in this case.

Moreover, this article helps us to prove that the consorts of the healing gods were mainly from Celtic origins. Despite their Celtic origins, however, the forms of the cult, the rites, and the structural organisation of the sanctuaries and temples were Roman. I argue that this is because the dedicants understood, and had appropriated, Roman habits – both in terms of their ritual practices and in the names they had – as well as the fact that most of them had Roman citizenship.