| Language / Culture | Name of Arduinna | Attestation |
|---|---|---|
| Gaulish | Arduinna (engr. ARDBINNAE) | Votive Altar |
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ARDUINNA
author: High Priest Zevios Metathronos
co-author: Novice Priest Karnonnos
I. The Name
The term "Arduinna" or "Arduenna" is one word. It comes from the Gaulish "ardu-," (height/elevation), related to Latin "arduus" meaning steep/tall). She represents the spirits of the high places, and thus her name has been given to the forest that rises up on the highest places. On an inscription of a votive stone from Duren on the Rhenish coast, "Deae Ardabinne", we have a simple, clear statement of devotion "To Dea Arduinna." Prior to this written representation, the name of the forest appears as early as Caesar's account of his campaign through "per Arduennam silvam" during his summer campaign against Ambiorix nearly a century prior to when the altar was created.1,2,3
The root is clearly demonstrated in a Gaulish onomastic context as the name of a coin issued by the Treveri who were based to the South of the fores; and it appears in later place-names at distances such as the forest of Arden in Britain. Another possible explanation for the double-nn could represent the use of a Belgian language in this region as opposed to Celtic in general.4,5,6
Sources: CIL XIII 7848; Caesar, Gallic War 6.29; CIL VI 46; Gregory of Tours, Histories 8.153,7
II. The Forest That Named Her
The Roman people saw the Arduenna silva as an area that had been mapped for generations. The Roman leader, Caesar named it the "largest forest in all of Gaul". He said that it stretched from the Rhine River and the border of the Treveri to the Nervii. It is reported to be over 500 miles long. After the revolt of Ambiorix collapsed, those who followed him went into this area and, after another century or so, after being forced to flee because they owed money, horsemen led by Julius Florus made their way through this same forest in order to join with other rebels who were trying to cause trouble in the year 21 CE; however, the Romans caught up with them and stopped them.3,6
Before there are altars to the goddess, the Romans named the wood, therefore, there is the wood of Arduinna appearing in our records before there is a reference to her as a god on stone. This is typical for what is called a dea loci, or a goddess of a specific location. Arduinna makes this high-oak area into something numinous.
III. The Epigraphic Dossier
The total cult record for Arduinna, excluding her forest-name, consists of two Latin inscriptions. The second inscription is questionable. The altar from Duren is definite: it identifies dea Arduinna unambiguously and places her, through the simple act of a Latin votive to a Gaulish goddess, in the religious sphere of Roman Germania. The second stone, an inscribed relief from Rome, has been interpreted as a dedication to Arduinne (if so she would be brought to the capital in the person of some soldier or traveler from the North); alternatively, the same letters could be read as Saturno.2,7
IV. The Huntress on the Boar
It is held that Arduinna could have been an archer (huntress) wearing a belted tunic, boots, and carrying a quiver for arrows as well as a knife. Two artefacts show her sitting on the back of a galloping wild boa. The general image of this illustration has made its way into virtually every book or handbook about ancient art.9
None of the artefacts have a name. As noted by Simone Deyts, the famous bronze of a female (Arduinna) in a short tunic riding a wild boar in a saddle and having a knife in hand is housed within the Musée des Antiquités Nationales at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. When it came through the hands of the antiquarian who purchased it in the 19th century, he probably named the statue Arduinna simply because she rides a wild boar, today the heradic symbol of the region, and the artefact was found in the Ardennes itself. It is therefore likely the statue represents a form of Diana from the forest.
This piece of artwork is included in Stephanie Boucher’s publication of the figurative bronzes from Gaul. In addition to this bronze there exists another identical bronze figure riding a boar which entered the British Museum in 1824 with Richard Payne Knight’s estate collection; however, it has always been referred to as Diana rather than Arduinna. Both bronzes have suffered head loss.10,11,12,13,14
| Object | Present location | Does it name her? |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze: huntress on a boar, sidesaddle, holding a knife | Musée des Antiquités Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-Laye | No inscription; “Arduinna” is a nineteenth-century attribution |
| Bronze: figure riding a boar | British Museum (Payne Knight bequest, 1824) | No inscription; traditionally called Diana |
| Votive altar | Düren, Rhineland | Inscribed deae Arduinnae; the one object that names her |
Sources: 2 CIL XIII 7848; 10 Deyts, Images des dieux de la Gaule, 46–47; 11 Boucher, Bronzes figurés, fig. 292; 12 British Museum, Payne Knight bequest.
V. Diana in the Ardennes
Under the name Diana, the cult of the forest goddess endured for many centuries after the demise of the Roman Empire. Gregory of Tours in his attack on pagamism has preserved one account of the cult's end. That account describes how the stylite monk Vulfilaicus lived on top of a high column near a wooded area in what was once called the Ardennes in the territory of Trier. This medieval account colors many subsequent accounts of Diana herself.
In that location, the local peasants had an idol (image) of Diana which they reverenced as well as made offerings to it. They also proclaimed their allegiance to Diana through oath swearing ceremonies and celebrated festivals honoring her. Eventually Vulfilaicus' preaching caused them to be persuaded into helping him knock over and then smash apart the large idol with hammers and iron tools.13
VI. The Afterlife of a Name
Arduenna silva turned into the Ardennes and the root for "heights" continued its journey throughout the northern woodland forests including, ultimately, the Forest of Arden. By 1894 an astronomer had given her name to a small planet (minor planet) called 394 Arduina. As such, the deity of the Gaulish forest is now also marked by a body in the asteroid belt.
Sources and Bibliography
- Delamarre, Xavier. Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. 2nd ed. Paris: Éditions Errance, 2003, 51–52. For the derivation of Arduinna and Arduenna from Gaulish arduo-, “height.”
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Vol. 13, Inscriptiones trium Galliarum et Germaniarum, no. 7848. Berlin: Reimer, 1899–. For the votive altar from Düren reading deae Ardbinnae (Arduinnae), the one secure attestation of the theonym.
- Caesar. The Gallic War. Translated by H. J. Edwards. Loeb Classical Library 72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917. Books 6.29 and 6.31. For the Arduenna silva as the largest forest of Gaul and as a refuge in the war against Ambiorix.
- Colbert de Beaulieu, Jean-Baptiste, and Brigitte Fischer. Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (RIG). Vol. 4, Les légendes monétaires. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 1998. For the Treveran coin-legend Arda and the spread of the arduo- root in Gaulish onomastics.
- Gysseling, Maurits. “De vroegste geschiedenis van het Nederlands: een taalkundige benadering.” Naamkunde 2 (1970): 157–180. For the minority reading of the geminate -nn- as Belgic (Nordwestblock) rather than ordinary Celtic.
- Tacitus. The Annals. Books 1–3. Translated by John Jackson. Loeb Classical Library 249. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931. Annals 3.42. For the flight of Julius Florus’s followers into the Ardennes in the revolt of 21 CE.
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Vol. 6, Inscriptiones urbis Romae Latinae, no. 46. Berlin: Reimer, 1876–. For the Rome relief read as Arduinne and alternatively as Saturno, the disputed second attestation.
- Jufer, Nicole, and Thierry Luginbühl. Les dieux gaulois: Répertoire des noms de divinités celtiques connus par l’épigraphie, les textes antiques et la toponymie. Paris: Éditions Errance, 2001. For the placement of Arduinna among the thinly attested Gaulish theonyms.
- Green, Miranda J. The Gods of the Celts. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1986, 180. For the report that some images show Arduinna riding a boar.
- Deyts, Simone. Images des dieux de la Gaule. Paris: Éditions Errance, 1992, 46–47. For the observation that the Saint-Germain-en-Laye boar-rider bears no inscription and was assigned to Arduinna only in the nineteenth century.
- Boucher, Stéphanie. Recherches sur les bronzes figurés de Gaule pré-romaine et romaine. Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 228. Rome: École française de Rome, 1976, fig. 292. For the catalogue illustration of the boar-rider bronze.
- British Museum. Bronze figure of a goddess riding a boar (Richard Payne Knight Bequest, 1824). For the second boar-rider bronze, traditionally identified as Diana.
- Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks. Translated by Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 8.15. For the stylite Vulfilaicus and the destruction of the statue of Diana in the Ardennes.