Interpretatio Romana: Empire, Syncretism, and the Sacred Gods of Gaul

Interpretatio Romana: Empire, Syncretism, and the Sacred Gods of Gaul explores the meeting point between Rome and the Celtic world, where conquest, translation, and sacred memory reshaped the gods of ancient Gaul.

Beginning with Julius Caesar's account in The Gallic War, this work examines how Roman observers identified Gallic deities through familiar Roman names such as Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Yet beneath those imperial names endured older Celtic powers: Lugus, Belenus, Lenus, Taranis, Sulis, Cernunnos, and the sacred gods of forest, spring, storm, tribe, and ancestral memory.

Through mythology, archaeology, inscriptions, sacred geography, and Romano Celtic syncretism, this book reveals how empire renamed the divine but did not erase it.