View source for Ogmios

{{Short description|Celtic god of eloquence}}
{{About||the linguistics journal published by the Foundation for Endangered Languages|Ogmios (journal)}}

[[File:Lucian's Ogmios, copy after Durer.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Albrecht Dürer]]'s rendition of the image of Ogmios which Lucian describes]]
'''Ogmios''' (sometimes '''Ogmius'''; {{langx|grc|Ὄγμιος}}) is the name given to a [[Celtic god]] of [[eloquence]] described in '''''Heracles''''', a {{circa|175 CE}} work of the Syrian satirist [[Lucian]].

Lucian's ''Heracles'' is a short text, intended to be read aloud before a longer public performance. It describes Lucian's viewing of a strange image of Ogmios in [[Gaul]]. In this image, the god is depicted as a dark-skinned, aged version of the Greek hero [[Heracles]], with a group of happy devotees tied by bejewelled chains to the god's tongue. A Celt approaches Lucian and explains these features, telling him that they reflect a native association of Ogmios with eloquence (which, the Celt explains, reaches its highest level in old age). Lucian uses this anecdote to prove to his audience that, in old age, he is still competent to deliver public performances.

The evidence outside of Lucian's text for the god Ogmios is quite limited. No image has been found which comes close to the one Lucian describes. The only mostly-accepted attestations of the god in archaeology are on two [[curse tablets]] from [[Bregenz|Brigantium]] (in [[Austria]]). Most scholars accept the existence of the god Ogmios, but a minority have expressed scepticism.

In medieval Irish mythology, the god [[Ogma]] was fabled as the inventor of the early Irish alphabet [[Ogham]]. Ogmios has frequently been connected with Ogma, but the nature of this connection has proven difficult to define. An etymology linking Ogmios, Ogma, and Ogham poses unresolved chronological and phonological problems. 

Lucian's text was much read in the Renaissance, and "Gallic Hercules" (as Ogmios was known) inspired a number of artistic works, including drawings by [[Albrecht Dürer]] and [[Hans Holbein the Younger]].

==Etymology==
[[Georges Dottin]], [[Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h]] and {{ill|Françoise Le Roux|fr}} have proposed to derive the god's name derives from Greek {{wikt-lang|grc|ὄγμος}} ({{transliteration|grc|ógmos}}, "[[furrow]], path").<ref name=Guyonvarch>{{cite journal |first=Christian-Joseph |last=Guyonvarc'h |title=Notes d'étymologie et de lexicographie gauloises et celtiques 14. Gaulois OGMIOS, irlandais OGMA, ogam. |journal=Ogam |volume=12 |date=1960 |pages=47–49 |url=https://archive.org/details/ogam_1960_12/page/47 }}</ref><ref name=LeRoux>{{cite journal |first=Françoise |last=Le Roux |title=Le dieu celtique aux liens: De l'Ogmios de Lucain à l'Ogmios de Dürer |url=https://archive.org/details/ogam_1960_12/page/209 |journal=Ogam |volume=12 |date=1960 |pages=209–234, pl. XXVII–XXIX }}</ref>{{rp|233}} Though Lucian tell us that Ogmios is the name of the god "in their native tongue", Guyonvarc'h and Le Roux believe it is possible the name may have been borrowed by Gaulish speakers from Greek in the parts of Gaul where Greek was widely spoken (such as [[Massalia]]). [[Jan de Vries (philologist)|Jan de Vries]] is sceptical of this possibility.<ref name=Hofeneder3>{{cite book |title=Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen |volume=3 |last=Hofeneder |first=Andreas |date=2011 |location=Wien |publisher=Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften |url=https://archive.org/details/9783700169970-gesamt-2 }}</ref>{{rp|93}}<ref name=deVries>{{cite book |last=de Vries |first=Jan |title=Keltische Religion |date=1961 |url=https://archive.org/details/keltischereligio0000vrie |url-access=registration |location=Stuttgart |publisher=W. Kohlhammer }}</ref>{{rp|70}} The Greek word {{lang|grc|ὄγμος}} seems to have had a connotation of leadership, which agrees with the iconography Lucian describes.<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|70}} The ''[[Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon]]'' notes the similarity with {{lang|grc|ἐπόγμιος}} ({{transliteration|grc|epógmios}}, "ruling over the furrows"), an epithet of the Greek god [[Demeter]].<ref name=NIL>{{cite book|last1=Wodtko|first1=Dagmar S.|last2=Irslinger|first2=Britta|last3=Schneider|first3=Carolin|title=Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon|publisher=Universitätsverlag Winter |location=Heidelberg |year=2008 |title-link=Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon}}</ref>{{rp|268}}
 
Celtic etymologies of the theonym have also been given. The potential existence of a reflex of the god's name in Irish mythology (Ogma, discussed below) has been taken to count in favour of such an etymology.<ref name=Duval>{{cite book |title=Les Dieux de la Gaule |publisher=Payot |date=1976 |edition=2 |location=Paris |last=Duval |first=Paul-Marie }}</ref>{{rp|81}}<ref name=Martin>{{cite journal |last=Martin |first=Josef |date=1946 |title=Ogmios |journal=Würzburger Jahrbücher |volume=1 |pages=359–399 |doi=10.11588/wja.1946.2.23118 }}</ref>{{rp|363}} [[Xavier Delamarre]] suggests that Ogmios is a reflex (through [[proto-Celtic]]) of [[proto-Indo-European]] *{{wikt-lang|ine-x-proto|h₂óǵmos}} ("way"), derived from the [[Proto-Indo-European root|PIE verbal root]] *{{wikt-lang|ine-x-proto|h₂eǵ-}} ("to drive"). He associates with theonym with the meaning of "a leader along a path".<ref name=Delamarre/>{{rp|239}} [[Pierre-Yves Lambert]] suggested that Ogmios was a reflex of the proto-Celtic {{lang|cel-x-proto|oug-}} ("to sew").<ref name=Delamarre>{{cite book|first=Xavier |last=Delamarre |title=Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental |date=2003 |location=Paris |edition=2nd |publisher=Éditions Errance }}</ref>{{rp|239}}

==Lucian's ''Heracles''{{anchor|Heracles}}==
Lucian (125 CE – after 180 CE) was a [[Syrian]] satirist and rhetorician who wrote in [[Ancient Greek]]. His short work ''Heracles'' or ''Hercules'' ({{langx|grc|Ἡρακλέα|Irakléa}}) is a {{lang|grc|prolaliai}}, that is, a short introduction intended to arouse audience interest prior to a longer lecture.<ref name=Nesselrath>{{cite book |first=Heinz-Günther |last=Nesselrath |chapter=Lucian’s Introductions |editor-last=Russell |editor-first=D. A. |title=Antonine Literature |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/oso/9780198140573.003.0005 |pages=111–140 |date=1990 |isbn=978-0-19-814057-3 }}</ref>{{rp|111-112}} It reflects on its author's old age, and his ability to deliver public oratory, concluding with an emphatic affirmation of this ability. On this basis, the text is dated late in Lucian's life, after his return from Egypt in 175 CE.<ref name=Amato>{{cite journal |first=Eugenio |last=Amato |title=Luciano e l'anonimo fi losofo Celta di Hercules 4: Proposta di identificazione |journal=Symbolae Osloenses |volume=79 |date=2004 |pages=128–149 |doi=10.1080/00397670410007222 }} </ref>
{{rp|129}} The passage relevant to Ogmios comes at the beginning, where Lucian delivers an ekphrasis (literary description of a work of art) of an image of Heracles:

{{blockquote|The Celts call Heracles Ogmios in their native tongue, and they portray the god in a very peculiar way. To their notion, he is extremely old,{{efn|1=Françoise Bader points out that Greek mythography presents Heracles as master of time and of death; never as an aged figure.<ref name=Bader>{{cite book |first=Françoise |last=Bader |chapter=Héraklès, Ogmios et les Sirènes |editor1-first=Colette |editor1-last=Jourdain-Annequin |editor2-first=Corinne |editor2-last=Bonnet |title=IIe Rencontre héracléenne: Héraclès, les femmes et le féminin |location=Bruxelles |publisher=Institut historique belge de Rome |date=1996 |pages=145–185 }}</ref>{{rp|147-150}}}} bald-headed, except for a few lingering hairs which are quite gray, his skin is wrinkled, and he is burned as black as can be, like an old sea-dog. You would think him a [[Charon]] or a sub-Tartarean [[Iapetus]]—anything but Heracles! Yet, in spite of his looks, he has the equipment of Heracles: he is dressed in [[Nemean lion|the lion’s skin]], has the club in his right hand, carries the quiver at his side, displays the bent bow in his left, and is Heracles from head to heel as far as that goes. I thought, therefore, that the Celts had committed this offence against the good-looks of Heracles to spite the Greek gods, and that they were punishing him by means of the picture for having once visited their country on a cattle-lifting foray, at the time when he raided most of the western nations in his quest of the herds of [[Geryon]].{{efn|1=In the course of [[Geryon#The_Tenth_Labour_of_Heracles|his Tenth Labour]], Heracles marched back through Western Europe with the cattle he had stolen from Geryon. Greco-Roman myth records his deeds in the various nations he passed through. [[Diodorus Siculus]], for example, reports that in Gaul he imposed order and ended the custom of murdering foreigners.<ref name=Bauchhenss/>{{rp|92}} Diodorus thus presents Hercules' activities in Gaul in parallel to [[Gallic Wars|Caesar's conquests]], as essentially civilising expeditions.<ref name=FL>{{cite journal |last=Favreau-Linder |first=Anne-Marie |title=Lucien et Le Mythe d'Ηρακλη̂ς ὁ Λόγος: Le Pouvoir Civilisateur de l'éloquence |journal=Pallas |volume=81 |date=2009 |issue=81 |pages=155–68 |jstor=43606620 }}</ref>
{{rp|162}} Rather than a bringer as civilisation, Lucian's Heracles is a raider, despised in Gaul.<ref name=Bauchhenss>{{cite book |first=Gerhard |last=Bauchhenß |chapter=Hercules in Gallien – facts and fiction |editor1-first=Ralph |editor1-last=Häussler |editor2-first= Anthony C. |editor2-last=King  |title=Continuity and Innovation in Religion in the Roman West |location=Portsmouth |publisher=Journal of Roman Archaeology |date=2008 |volume=II |pages=91–102 }}</ref>{{rp|93}}}} But I have not yet mentioned the most surprising thing in the picture. That old Heracles of theirs drags after him a great crowd of men who are all tethered by the ears! His leashes are delicate chains fashioned of gold and amber, resembling the prettiest of necklaces. Yet, though led by bonds so weak, the men do not think of escaping, as they easily could, and they do not pull back at all or brace their feet and lean in the opposite direction to that in which he is leading them. In fact, they follow cheerfully and joyously, applauding their leader and all pressing him close and keeping the leashes slack in their desire to overtake him; apparently they would be offended if they were let loose! But let me tell you without delay what seemed to me the strangest tiling of all. Since the artist had no place to which he could attach the ends of the chains, as the god’s right hand already held the club and his left the bow, he pierced the tip of his tongue and represented him drawing the men by that means! Moreover, he has his face turned toward his captives, and is smiling.<ref name=Loeb>{{cite book |chapter=Heracles |title=Lucian: Volume I |series=Loeb Classical Library |volume=14 |translator-last=Harmon |translator-first=A. M. |doi=10.4159/DLCL.lucian-heracles.1913 |date=1913 |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |last1=Lucian }}</ref>{{rp|1-3}}}}

Puzzling at this picture, a Celt fluent in Greek, whom Lucian describes as versed in Greek and Celtic lore, interjects with an explanation. The copious quotations from Greek that the Celt adduces have been omitted from the following.<ref name=Loeb/>{{rp|4}}

{{blockquote|I will read you the riddle of the picture, stranger, as you seem to be very much disturbed about it. We Celts do not agree with you Greeks in thinking that [[Hermes]] is Eloquence: we identify Heracles with it, because he is far more powerful than Hermes. And don’t be surprised that he is represented as an old man, for eloquence and eloquence alone is wont to show its full vigour in old age [...] This being so, if old Heracles here drags men after him who are tethered by the ears to his tongue, don’t be surprised at that, either: you know the kinship between ears and tongue. Nor is it a slight upon him that his tongue is pierced. [...] In general, we consider that the real Heracles was a wise man who achieved everything by eloquence and applied persuasion as his principal force. His arrows represent words, I suppose, keen, sure and swift, which make their wounds in souls. In fact, you yourselves admit that words are winged.<ref name=Loeb/>{{rp|4-6}}}}

Lucian often chose exotic subject matter to arouse his audience's interest. His choice of subject matter in ''Heracles'' was no doubt tailored towards this end; his listeners, likely in the [[Greek East]], would have hardly been familiar with Celtic society.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|85}} The rhetorician's intentions were, in turn, hardly ethnographic. [[Andreas Hofeneder]] points out that Lucian neglects to tell us where in Gaul his story takes place; what sort of building the picture was located in; and even the nature of the picture (whether a relief, a mosaic, or a painting). Lucian's other writings tell us that he worked as rhetorician in Gaul, but they do not tell us where or when.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|94}}{{efn|1= Lucian's life is largely known from autobiographical remarks in his writings.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|82}} In ''Apologia'' 15, Lucian tells us that "on that Atlantic tour of yours which included Gaul, you found me numbered among those teachers who could command high fees". In ''Bis Accusatus sive Tribunalia'' 27, Rhetoric personified tells us "I sailed the [[Ionian Sea]] with him [sc., Lucian] and attended him even as far as Gaul".<ref>For the relationship of these texts to Lucian's life, see {{cite journal |first=Eugenio |last=Amato |title=Luciano e l'anonimo fi losofo Celta di Hercules 4: Proposta di identificazione |journal=Symbolae Osloenses |volume=79 |date=2004 |pages=130 |doi=10.1080/00397670410007222 }} For the translations of the texts, see "[https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:dialogues:the-double-indictment Bis Accusatus sive Tribunalia]" and "[https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:apology-for-dependent-scholar Apologia]" at ''The Lucian of Samosata Project''.</ref>}} It has been suggested that Lucian's narrative may have taken place in the semi-Hellenized south of Gaul,<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|65}} perhaps [[Massalia]],<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|119}} but this is far from certain.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|94}}

The speaker who interjects to explain the image (in this narrative, a learned Celt) is something of a stock figure in ekphrases. [[Paul Friedländer (philologist)|Paul Friedländer]] pointed out that Lucian's introduction of the Celt borrows material from the ''[[Tabula Cebetis]]'', a popular philosophical ekphrasis.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|86}} Lucian describes the Celt as a "philosopher in local matters".{{efn|{{langx|grc|φιλόσοφος τὰ ἐπιχώρια|filósofos tá epichória}}.}} It was common in Greek accounts of the Celts to refer to the [[druid]]s as philosophers, and on this basis it has been suggested that the Celt who addressed Lucian was a druid, however by the time Lucian wrote the druids had been suppressed by Roman decree for over a century. [[Eugenio Amato]] suggests that if Lucian had encountered a druid, he would have been unlikely to credit a member of the maligned religious order so highly.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|86-88}} Amato has suggested that the Celtic speaker is Lucian's imitation of his contemporary [[Favorinus]], a Roman sophist of Gaulish extraction who had great command of Greek poetry and wrote a discourse on old age, and whom Lucian elsewhere refers to. The abundant quotations from Greek literature may reflect Favorinus's preoccupations, though little of the sophist's work has survived.<ref name=Amato/>{{rp|134-141}}

The reality of the image Lucian describes has been repeatedly doubted.<ref name=Nesselrath/>{{rp|133}} Lucian's characteristic mixture of satire and journalism, and especially the mockery he directs towards religious feeling, make him a problematic source for the history of religion. The view of scholars in the 19th and early 20th centuries of Lucian as a straightforward purveyor of falsehoods has largely subsided, and scholars now tend to take a more nuanced view.<ref name=Spickermann>{{cite book |last=Spickermann |first=Wolfgang |chapter=Ekphrasis und Religion: Lukian und der Hercules Ogmios |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/40876081 |date=2008 |editor1-first=Günther |editor1-last=Schörner |editor2-first=Erker |editor2-last=Šterbenc |title=Medien religiöser Kommunikation im Imperium Romanum|location=Stuttgart |publisher=F. Steiner |pages=53–63 }}</ref>{{rp|52-53}} In the 19th and early 20th centuries researchers were unanimous in seeing Lucian's image as an invention. More recent scholarship has been balanced between the two views.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|94}} 

In favour of the existence of this image, it has been pointed out that nothing about Lucian's story is impossible. The satirist certainly visited Gaul, where wall paintings of mythological scenes are known to have existed.<ref name=Koepp>{{cite journal |first=Friedrich |last=Koepp |title=Ogmios: Bemerkungen zur gallischen Kunst |journal=Bonner Jahrbücher |volume=125 |date=1919 |pages=38–73, pl. IV–VII |doi=10.11588/bjb.1919.0.47250 }}</ref>{{rp|43-44}} Amato suggests he could have learned of this picture from Favorinus.<ref name=Amato/>{{rp|144}} Marion Euskirchen took the "detailed iconographic elements of the image described by Lucian, as well as their unusual combination" to speak to its veracity.<ref name=Euskirchen>{{cite book |last=Euskirchen |first= Marion |date=2001 |chapter=Ogmios – ein wenig bekannter Gott |editor-first=Gunnar |editor-last=Brands |display-editors=et al |title=Rom und die Provinzen: Gedenkschrift für Hans Gabelmann  |location=Mainz |publisher=von Zabern |pages=119–124 }}</ref>{{rp|121}} {{ill|Friedrich Koepp|de}} and {{ill|German Hafner|de}} accept it as authentic, but are sceptical of Lucian's explanation.<ref name=Nesselrath/>{{rp|133}} Hafner, for example, argued the image was identifiable as a classical depiction of Heracles' enemy [[Geras]],<ref name=Hafner>{{cite journal |first=German |last=Hafner |title=Herakles – Geras – Ogmios |journal=Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz |volume=5 |date=1958 |pages=139–153 |doi=10.11588/jrgzm.1958.0.33462 }}</ref>{{rp|147-153}} though Euskirchen is unconvinced the ekphrasis can be read this way.<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|123}}

Against its existence, sceptics have adduced "the absurdity of this explanation, and its all-too-visible link with the necessities of a ''prolalia''".<ref name=Bompaire>{{cite book |last=Bompaire |first=Jacques |location=Paris |publisher=Boccard |date=1958 |title=Lucien écrivain: Imitation et création |series=Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome |volume=190 |issue=1 |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/befar_0257-4101_1958_mon_190_1 }}</ref>{{rp|726}} [[Jaś Elsner]], for example, calls the image "effectively a self-portrait of the orator as an old man".<ref name=Elsner>{{cite book |last=Elsner |first=Jaś |chapter=Lucian and Art History |editor1-last=Goldhill |editor1-first=Simon |title=The Cambridge Companion to Lucian |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2024 |pages=115–137}}</ref>{{rp|129}} No wall paintings with scenes of a non-classical type have survived in Gaul.<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|121}} {{ill|Wolfgang Spickermann|de}} suggests that Lucian composed plausible elements (allegorical painting, the god Ogmios, his stay in Gaul) fictitiously for literary ends.<ref name=Spickermann/>{{rp|59}} More recently, scholars such as {{ill|Gerhard Bauchhenß|de}} and Hofeneder have counted the paucity of archaeological evidence for Ogmios (discussed below) against the reality of this image.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|94}}

==Ogmios outside of Lucian==
Lucian's text is a valuable, but problematic and isolated source. Ogmios is mentioned nowhere else in classical literature, with the exception of two [[Byzantine]] lexicons which clearly depend on Lucian.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|90}} The archaeological evidence for Ogmios is very limited. The only mostly-accepted attestations of the god, outside of Lucian, are two curse tablets from Brigantium.<ref name=FL/>{{rp|156}} The existence of Ogmios is accepted by a majority of scholars, even among those (such as Spickermann) who doubt the authenticity of Lucian's narrative. A minority—Bauchhenß and Hofeneder—have expressed scepticism about Ogmios's existence.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|94-95}}

===Hercules in Gaul===
By way of his adventures through Western Europe, ancient literature often associated Hercules and the Celts. [[Parthenius of Nicaea]], for example, claimed that Heracles was, through his son Keltos, progenitor of all the Celts.<ref name=Bauchhenss/>{{rp|91-92}} In the Roman era, Hercules was worshipped in Gaul, especially in his role as patron of [[sacred spring]]s. However, Ogmios does not seem to have been important to this worship. The epigraphic evidence reveals very little linking Hercules to native deities; and nothing at all linking Hercules to Ogmios.<ref name=Hekster>{{cite journal |last=Hekster |first=Olivier |title=Gallic images of Hercules |url=https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/61908/210453.pdf |journal=Journal of Roman Archaeology |volume=17 |date=2004 |pages=669–674 |doi=10.1017/S1047759400008692 }}</ref>{{rp|671-673}}<ref name=Bauchhenss/>{{rp|98-99}}

The iconographic evidence for Hercules Ogmios is little more impressive. No images of Hercules found in Gaul come near the arrangement described by Lucian. [[Salomon Reinach]] linked Ogmios to two representations from Gaul, both quite late: a bronze statuette of Hercules, bent with age; and a [[terra sigillata]] with a relief of an apparently bald Hercules.<ref name=Hekster/>{{rp|671}}<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Hercules (in Peripheria Occidentali) |first=Luis Javier |last=Balmaseda |date=1990 |encyclopedia=[[Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae]] |volume=V |pages=255–262 |url=https://archive.org/details/limc_20210516/Lexicon%20Iconographicum%20Mythologiae%20Classicae/LIMC%20V-1%20Herakles-Kenchrias/page/n143 }}</ref>{{rp|256, 261}} However, [[Stephanie Boucher]] argued the hunch of the former was a product of low quality bronze-work; and Euskirchen has argued that the latter's baldness could have been caused by wear to the pottery.<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|fn 38}}

===Curse tablets===
[[File:Brigantium Ogmios defixione 1882.jpg|thumb|1st-century CE curse tablet, now lost, perhaps invoking Ogmios to silence court witnesses.]]
Two [[curse tablet]]s, both found in [[Bregenz|Brigantium]] (in [[Austria]]), have been linked to Ogmios. The first, discovered in 1865 and now lost, dates to the 1st century CE;{{efn|1={{CIL|3|11882}} = Sánchez Natalías, ''Sylloge of Defixiones from the Roman West'', no. 520.}} the second, discovered in 1930, dates to the 1st/2nd century CE.{{efn|1=Sánchez Natalías, ''Sylloge of Defixiones from the Roman West'', no. [https://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_url.php?s_sprache=en&p_publication=Sanchez-2022,%2000521&r_sortierung=Belegstelle 521].}} The former curse invokes a god to silence any witnesses who would speak against the (female) curse-writer's interest in court. The latter curse invokes [[Dis Pater]] and another god to damage a young woman's body in order that she may be made unmarriageable. In 1943, Robert Egger proposed to read both these tablets as invoking the god Ogmios. Egger's reading has largely met with agreement in the scholarly literature, though Hofeneder and Euskirchen have expressed scepticism.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|90-91}}<ref name=SánchezNatalias>{{cite book |first=Celia |last=Sánchez Natalias |title=Sylloge of ''Defixiones'' from the Roman West: A comprehensive collection of curse tablets from the fourth century BCE to the fifth century CE |volume=II |location=Oxford |publisher=BAR Publishing |date=2022 }}</ref>{{rp|438-439}}

Egger argued that only gods of the underworld were invoked on curse tablets, and that therefore Ogmios should be interpreted as a chthonic deity.<ref name=Egger>{{cite book |last=Egger |first=Rudolf |orig-date=1943 |chapter=Aus der Unterwelt der Festlandskelten |date=1962 |title=Römische Antike und Frühes Christentum: Ausgewählte Schriften von Rudolf Egger |volume=I |pages=272–311 |publisher=Geschichtsvereines für Kärnten |location=Klagenfurt }}</ref>{{rp|290}} Further to this point, Egger pointed out that Lucian compares Ogmios to [[Iapetus]] and [[Charon]], both figures of the [[Greek underworld]].<ref name=Egger/>{{rp|293}} Egger's association of Ogmios with the underworld has met with some agreement in the literature, but more often with scepticism.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|91}} De Vries points out that a god only had to be considered powerful to be invoked in a curse.<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|66}} For example (as Euskirchen points out) a curse tablet invoking [[Nodens]] (a Celtic god of healing) is known from [[Gloucestershire]].<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|122}}{{efn|1={{CIL|7|140}} = Sánchez Natalías, ''Sylloge of Defixiones from the Roman West'', no. 205}} Euskirchen will also not allow that Lucian's comparison of Ogmios to Iapetus and Charon goes further than their skin colour.<ref name=Euskirchen/>{{rp|122}}

===Other possible attestations===
{{multiple image
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| image2 = Monnaie - Statère, or, fonds celtique, Vénètes - btv1b11289112q (2 of 2).jpg
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|footer=Gold [[stater]] of the Armorican [[Veneti (Gaul)|Veneti]] with the head type 'Ogmios', on which a [[hippocamp]] perches amid beaded strands; the reverse is  typical in depicting a racing chariot drawn by a man-faced horse
}}
{{ill|Eugène Hucher|fr}} connected Lucian's image of Ogmios with coin-type from [[Armorica]], on one side of which is depicted a beardless male bust with a number of pearl-like chains extending from his head. Any relationship of this coin-type with Ogmios is largely rejected now, following arguments by Charles Robert,<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|91}} who pointed out that the coins appear to be copies of Greek [[stater]]s of [[Philip II of Macedon|Philip II]], and in any case diverge from Lucian's Ogmios insofar as the coins depict a young man, with chains emerging from his head rather than his mouth, and no faces on the end of these chains.<ref name=Robert>{{cite journal |last=Robert |first=Charles |title=Ogmius, dieu de l'éloquence, figure-t-il sur les monnaies armoricaines? |journal=Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres |volume=29 |issue=3 |date=1885 |pages=268–273 |doi=10.3406/crai.1885.69115 }}</ref>{{rp|270-271}} De Vries accepts the possibility that these coins represent a different iconographic variety of Ogmios, known in the north of Gaul.<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|66}}

Outside than the curse tablets, a few inscriptions are insecurely connected with Ogmios. [[Fritz Heichelheim]] tentatively identified an inscription on a bronze statue base{{efn|{{CIL|13|11295}}: {{lang|la|Ogl. Aug. sac./ Ateuritus/ seplas(iarius) v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito)}}. The initial portion was reconstructed by Heichelheim as {{lang|la|Og(mio) L(aribus) Aug(ustis)}}, hence a dedication to Ogmios.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|92}}}} as a [[votive]] dedication to Ogmios.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|92}} Heichelheim's reconstruction has been generally rejected, going back as far as Egger.<ref name=Bauchhenss/>{{rp|93}} A lost inscription from [[Salins-les-Thermes]]{{efn|{{CIL|12|5710}}}} was originally read as a votive inscription to Herculei Ograio. [[Théodore Reinach]] wanted to emend this to Herculei Ogmio, but it is more likely that this the inscription originally reproduced the known name-pairing Hercueli [[Graioceli#Name|Graio]].<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|92}} Two inscriptions from Iberia,{{efn|1=''Hispania Epigraphica'' [https://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_url.php?s_sprache=en&p_publication=HEp%202006,%2000368&r_sortierung=Belegstelle 2006, 368] and  ''Hispania Epigraphica'' [https://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_url.php?s_sprache=en&p_publication=HEp%201993,%2000494&r_sortierung=Belegstelle 1993, 494]}} which [[Francisco Marco Simón]] connected with Ogmios, have been given recent readings which preclude his interpretations.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|92-93}} A votive altar to Hercules Gallicus in [[Piedimonte Matese]] (in Italy),{{efn|{{CIL|9|2322}}}} a name-pairing not otherwise attested, could be connected to Ogmios, but is more likely to be related to a local toponym.<ref>{{cite book |last=Camodeca |first=Giuseppe |chapter=Alife, ubicazione incerta, Hercules Gallicus |title=Fana, templa, delubra: Corpus dei luoghi di culto dell'Italia antica ''(FTD)'' |volume=3 |publisher=Collège de France |location=Paris |date=2015 |page=20 |edition=Online |doi=10.4000/books.cdf.3794 |isbn=978-88-7140-581-0 }}</ref>

The [[onomastic]] evidence is also quite limited. A 4th-century CE inscription on a vase found in [[Kent]] gives the female personal name Ocmia, which was interpreted by [[Anne Ross (archaeologist)|Anne Ross]] as a female form of Ogmios. The [[Franks|Frankish]] personal name Ogmireectherius, recorded in the 7th century CE, was given a Celtic etymology by [[Alfred Holder]], who thought the first half of the name incorporated the theonym Ogmios, though [[Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h]] has given a [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] etymology without reference to the theonym.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|92}}

==In later mythology==
===Ogma and Ogham===
{{further|Ogma}}
[[File:CIIC 504.gif|thumb|Ogham text on the [[Ballaqueeney Ogham Stone|Ballaqueeney Stone]]]]
Ogma is a figure of [[Irish mythology]], an orator and warrior of the [[Tuatha Dé Danann]] (a supernatural race in medieval Irish literature often thought to represent [[euhemerized]] pre-Christian deities). Ogma is described as the inventor of [[Ogham]], an alphabet used to write the [[early Irish language]].<ref name=MacKillopOgma>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Ogma, Oghma, Ogmae, Ogme |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Celtic Mythology |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2004 |edition=Online |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198609674.001.0001/acref-9780198609674-e-3320 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=James |last=MacKillop |title=Tuatha Dé Danann |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Celtic Mythology |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2004 |edition=Online |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198609674.001.0001/acref-9780198609674-e-3684 }}</ref> A relationship between Ogma and Ogmios has been supposed, but scholars have been "hard-pressed to delineate" the relationship between these figures, as [[James MacKillop (author)|James MacKillop]] has put it.<ref name=MacKillopOgma>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Ogma, Oghma, Ogmae, Ogme |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Celtic Mythology |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2004 |edition=Online |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198609674.001.0001/acref-9780198609674-e-3320 }}</ref>

The etymologies of Ogma and Ogham are uncertain. It is not even certain that their etymologies must be connected. As [[Bernhard Maier]] has pointed out, the tradition which connects Ogma to Ogham is late, and may only reflect the superficial similarity of the two words.<ref name=Maier>{{cite book |last=Maier |first=Bernhard |title=Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture |publisher=Boydell Press |location=Woodbridge |isbn=9780851156606 |date=1997 }}</ref>{{rp|213}} The proposal to explain Ogma as a reflex of Ogmios may pose phonological difficulties. The development of proto-Celtic "gm" in Irish is not clear. If it developed like "gn", the initial g would be dropped, in which case proto-Celtic {{lang|cel-x-proto|Ogmo-}} would have give rise to Middle Irish *{{lang|mga|Úam}} or *{{lang|mga|Óm}} rather than {{lang|mga|Ogma}}.<ref name=Matasović>{{cite book |first=Ranko |last=Matasović |title=Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic |url=https://archive.org/details/matasovic-etymological-dictionary-of-proto-celtic |volume=9 |location=Leiden / Boston |series=Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series |publisher=Brill |date=2009 }}</ref>{{rp|297}}<ref name=McManus/>{{rp|152}} If this is the case, a relationship between Ogma and Ogmios would have to be explained by a late borrowing from [[Gaulish]], which creates chronological difficulties for an etymology connecting Ogma and Ogham.<ref name=McManus>{{cite book |last=McManus |first=Damian |date=1991 |title=A Guide to Ogam |location=Maynooth |publisher=An Sagart |isbn=978-1-870684-17-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/guidetoogam0000mcma |url-access=registration }}</ref>{{rp|152}} On the other hand, given the state of the evidence, [[Ranko Matasović]] entertains the possibility that "g" was preserved before "m" in the transition to Irish.<ref name=Matasović/>{{rp|297}}

===Other myths===
{{ill|John Arnott MacCulloch|de}} connected Ogmios with some episodes from the Irish tale ''[[Táin Bó Cúailnge]]'': one, where a gloomy figure drags seven unwilling figures by a chain around his neck; another, where [[Cú Chulainn]] grows angry and his body distorts itself horribly, in such a way as MacCulloch compares with iconography of Ogmios. De Vries is sceptical of these parallels, and points out differences between the iconography in Lucian and these scenes.<ref name=deVries/>{{rp|66-67}} 

[[John Rhŷs]] proposed that [[Eufydd fab Dôn]], a minor figure of Welsh mythology, was cognate with Ogmios.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rhŷs |first=John |title=All around the Wrekin |journal=Y Cymmrodor |volume=XXI |date=1908 |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028058059 }}</ref>{{rp|62}} This hypothesis has more recently received the favour of {{ill|Claude Sterckx|fr}}.<ref name=Sterckx>{{cite journal |last=Sterckx |first=Claude |title=Efydd ab Dôn un Ogmios gallois |journal=Annales de Bretagne |volume=79 |issue= 4 |date=1972 |pages=837–843 |doi=10.3406/abpo.1972.2662 }}</ref>

==In the Renaissance==
The reception of Lucian's ekphrasis of Hercules Ogmios in [[the Renaissance]] has been described as "astonishingly rich".<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|95}} Such sources such as [[Andrea Alciato]]'s much-read ''[[Emblemata]]'' and the mythographies of [[Annius of Viterbo]] and [[Natalis Comes]] popularised the myth of "Gallic Hercules" among [[humanist]]s and artists.<ref name=Hallowell>{{cite journal |last=Hallowell |first=Robert E. |title=Ronsard and the Gallic Hercules Myth |journal= Studies in the Renaissance |date=1962 |volume=9 |pages=242–255 |doi=10.2307/2857119 |jstor=2857119 }}</ref>{{rp|242-248}} In France, Gallic Hercules was regarded as a founder of the nation, and associated with the French monarchy.<ref name=Hallowell/>{{rp|245-250}} A sculpture of [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] as Ogmios, binding the [[Estates of the realm|Four Estates]] by his tongue, was unveiled in Paris upon the entry of [[Henry II of France|Henry II]] in 1549.<ref>{{cite book |last=Villas Bôas |first=Luciana |date=2024 |chapter=Images of Power and Public Sphere: Geoffroy Tory’s Orator King (1529/1549) and the Philibert-Louis Deboucourt’s Constituent Assembly (1891) |title=Re-imagining the Public Sphere in the Long Nineteenth Century |editor1-first=Sèan |editor1-last=Allen |editor2-first=Christian |editor2-last=Moser |location=Bielefeld |publisher= Aisthesis Verlag |pages=423–443 |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384763527 }}</ref>{{rp|426}} [[Albrecht Dürer]]'s rendition of Ogmios as [[Hermes]] (pictured above) is well known, but there is also a drawing from the School of [[Raphael]], a wall painting in [[Library of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial|the ''Escurialense'']], and a very large number of printed [[woodcut]]s.<ref name=Hofeneder3/>{{rp|95}} 

===Gallery===
{{gallery
|File:School of Raphael, Gallic Hercules.jpg
|Drawing by School of [[Raphael]]
|File:Hans Holbein the Younger, Gallic Hercules.jpg
|Sketch by [[Hans Holbein the Younger]]
|File:Emblemata Andreae Alciati (1548) (14749556824).jpg
|Woodcut from [[Andrea Alciato|Alciato]]'s ''[[Emblemata]]'' (1518)
|File:Francis I as Gallic Hercules.png
|Sculpture of Francis I as Gallic Hercules
|File:Geoffroy Tory, Francis I as Gallic Hercules.jpg
|Woodcut of Francis I as Gallic Hercules
|File:Hans Frank, Hercules Gallicus (Ogmios).jpg
|Woodcut by Hans Frank (for [[Andreas Cratander]]'s edition [[Aulus Gellius|Gellius]]'s ''Noctes Atticae'')
|File:Gallic Hercules, Pieter van der Borcht.jpg
|Gallic Hercules by [[Pieter van der Borcht the Elder|Pieter van der Borcht]]
|File:EscorialBiblioteca.jpg
|Painting of Gallic Hercules (top left) in [[Library of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial|the ''Escurialense'']],
}}

==See also==
* ''[[De Dea Syria]]''
* [[Lugus]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Benoît |first=Fernand |chapter=L’Ogmius de Lucien et Hercule Psychopompe |title=Beiträge zur älteren Europäischen Kulturgeschichte. Festschrift für Rudolf Egger Klagenfurt |date=1952 |volume=I |pages=144–158 }}
* {{cite book |last=Birkhan |first=Helmut |title=Kelten: Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Kultur |edition=2nd |publisher=Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften |location=Wien |date=1997 |pages=556f }}
* {{cite book |last=Faedo |first=Lucia |date=1994 |chapter=Le immagini dal testo: Commento all’apparato iconografico |editor-first=Sonia |editor-last=Maffei |title=Luciano di Samosata: Descrizioni di opera d'arte |location=Turin |publisher=Nuova Universale Einaudi |pages=138–139}}
* {{cite book |last=Loicq |first=Jean |chapter=Ogmios-Varuna et l’organisation de la fonction de souveraineté dans le panthéon celtique |editor-first=J.|editor-last= Duchesne-Guillemin  |title=Orientalia J. Duchesne-Guillemin emerito oblata |location= Leiden |date=1984|pages= 341–382 }}
* {{cite book |first=Francisco |last=Marco Simón |title=Die Religion im keltischen Hispanien |series=Archaeolingua. Series Minor |volume=12 |location=Budapest |date=1998 |page=40 }}
* {{cite book |last=Moitrieux |first=Gérard |title=Hercules in Gallia. Recherches sur la personnalité et le culte d'Hercule en Gaule |location=Paris |publisher=De Boccard |date=2002 |pages=178–181 }}
* {{cite thesis |last=Schinnerl |first=Alexander |title=Der gallische Gott Ogmios |publisher=Universität Wien |date=2014 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Sterckx |first=Claude |title=Rhiannon fille de l'Ogmios gallois |journal=Ollodagos |volume=16 |date=2002 |pages=147–152 }}
* {{cite book |first=Dietmar |last=Till |chapter=Der 'Hercules Gallicus' als Symbol der Eloquenz: Zu einem Aspekt frühneuzeitlicher Rhetorikikonographie |title=Artibus. Kulturwissenschaft und deutsche Philologie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit |editor1-first=Stephan |editor1-last=Füssel|editor2-first=Gert |editor2-last=Hübner |editor3-first=Joachim |editor3-last=Knape |location=Wiesbaden |publisher=Harassowitz |date=1994 |pages=249–274 }}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Ogmios}}
* "[https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:heracles Heracles, an Introductory Lecture]" translated into English at the ''Lucian of Samosata Project''.
* "[http://www.symbolforschung.ch/Ogmios.html Ogmios — Personifikation der Beredsamkeit]" (in German) with a large number of other images of Gallic Hercules.

{{Celtic mythology (ancient)}}
{{Lucian}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Celtic gods]]
[[Category:Heracles]]