Mars
Also called Mars Lucetius, Mars Leucetius, Celtic Mars.
The Roman name that swallowed more than sixty Celtic gods, leaving their own names lost and their functions showing through as farming and healing.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Celtic mythology (general)
- Region
- Europe (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Ward-Holders
Near this figure
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Defensive powers
- Guardianship
why
Mars in Rome began as a farming god first and a war god later, on the logic that fields are worth nothing if nobody will fight for them — and the Celtic material suggests the same double duty in a number of places, with inscriptions and sculpture connecting the local Mars to farming as much as to fighting.
Utility powers
- Healing
why
At Bath, among the healing springs, he appears as Mars Lucetius, Mars of light, and elsewhere as a healing power: the warrior turned to fighting off disease rather than armies.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Hero carries
3 citations
- Firdausi, translated by Arthur George Warner and Edmond Warner, The Sháhnáma.
- J. C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, s.v. "Mars."
- Patricia Monaghan, The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore, p. 314.