Avenches – Roman Museum – Permanent Exhibition

First Floor Religion
The Local Gods
Mythology and Heroes
(Display case 22)
Hercules (display case 22, nos. 1-3) is the equivalent of the Celtic god Ogmios. His
attributes – a lion skin and a club – were identical to those of Hercules, but he was
depicted as an older man.
The Dioscuri (Display case 22, no. 4), as the twins Castor and Pollux are also
called, were particularly venerated in Gaul as astral gods and the protectors of
navigators and horsemen.
Display case 22
1. Head of Hercules, limestone.
2. Hercules, with a lion skin draped over his arm. Bronze statuette (1).
3. Gilt bronze lion skin, belonging to a statue of Hercules. Late 2nd / early 3rd century AD.
4. Dioscurus. Bronze piece of chariot. 2nd century AD.
The Local Gods
(Display cases 23-24)
Celtic religion, like Roman religion, was polytheistic. Due to the lack of written
sources, our knowledge of this religion is based mainly on a text by Julius Caesar
(Gallic Wars Book VI, 17) listing and briefly describing the five great gods of the
Gauls. However, Caesar gave them the names of those Roman gods who had
the most similar attributes, so he mentioned Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and
Minerva.
There were numerous other Gaulish deities, who survived Romanisation. In
some cases we do not know their names or functions (display case 23, no. 3). Some
were known everywhere in the Romanised Celtic world like Sucellus (display case 23,
no. 16), Epona (display case 23, nos. 8-9) or Lug (catalogue of inscriptions: no. 2); others
seem to have been more local gods such as Anextlomara (display case 23, no. 1) or
Aventia who gave her name to Aventicum (display case 2, no. 1).
Anextlomara (display case 23, no. 1) means “the great protectress”. She was
associated with the deities of prosperity (display case 23, nos. 10-11 and 13-14).
The Hooded Genius (genius cucullatus) (display case 23, no. 2) was dressed in
traditional Gaulish garments. Fertility and healing were his specialities; he also
accompanied the dead to the hereafter.
Epona (display case 23, nos. 8-9), the equestrian goddess, was extremely popular
with horsemen and, in particular, with soldiers. She was not associated with any
other Roman deity. Epona is always represented as an Amazon sitting on her horse.
Female deities of prosperity and fertility. They are represented in various
ways, either as naked young women, whose iconography resembles that of Venus
(display case 23, nos. 10-11), as more mature women holding a cornucopia, which
corresponds with the attributes of Fortuna (display case 23, no. 13), or as mothers or
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First Floor
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