Sulis
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In localised Celtic polytheism practiced in Britain, Sul or Sulis[1] was the deification of the thermal spring-water of Bath, Somerset, where she was worshipped by Britanno-Romans as Sulis Minerva, whose votive objects and inscribed lead tablets suggest that she was conceived both as a nourishing, life-giving mother goddess and an effective agent of curses wished by her votaries.[2]
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Etymology
Suil in Old Irish is 'eye' or "gap". Did her name "Sulis" suggest, in Gallo-Brittonic, the connotation of the 'orifice or gap' through which the healing waters ran? At Delphi the omphalos or navel was an opening into the other world.
However, the reconstructed lexis of the Proto-Celtic language as collated by the University of Wales[3] suggests that the name is likely to be ultimately derived from the Proto-Celtic *Su-lījīs. This Proto-Celtic word connotes the semantics of ‘Good, Flooding One,’ *līj- being found in *Lījros (‘tidal flood, sea,’ cf Lir and Llyr) and in *Līj-enissā (‘tidal island;’ cf. Lyonesse). This apparent semantic connotation has led Dr. John Koch at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies to suggest that this mythic personality may well personify “beneficial water-flow,” of which the thermal springs at Bath and perhaps other sites may well have been deemed a manifestation. This theory, if it is correct, would account for the associations with potentially therapeutic thermal springs.
The usual etymology is that Sulis means 'sun', however, as this is the original form of Welsh haul 'sun' and Old Irish suil (from Indo-European *sawel-); cf. Latin sol 'sun'.
Bath cult
Sulis was the local goddess of the thermal springs that still feed the spa baths at Bath, which the Romans called Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis").[4] Her name appears on inscriptions at Bath, but nowhere else. This should not be disappointing. Celtic deities often preserved their archaic localisation. They remained to the end associated with a specific place, often a cleft in the earth, a spring, pool or well. The Greeks referred to the similarly local pre-Hellenic deities in the local epithets that they assigned, associated with the cult of their Olympian pantheon at certain places (Zeus Molossos only at Dodona, for example). The Romans tended to lose sight of these specific locations, except in a few Etruscan cult inheritances and ideas like the genius loci, the guardian spirit of a place.
"Minerva"
At Bath, the Roman temple is dedicated to Sulis Minerva, as the primary deity of the temple spa. Through the Roman Minerva syncresis, later mythographers have inferred that Sulis was also a goddess of wisdom and decisions.
Sulis was not the only goddess exhibiting syncretism with Minerva. Senua's name appears on votive plaques bearing Minerva's image, while Brigantia also shares many traits associated with Minerva. The identification of multiple Celtic gods with the same Roman god is not unusual (both Mars and Mercury were paired with a multiplicity of Celtic names). On the other hand, Celtic goddesses tended to resist syncretism; Sulis Minerva is one of the few attested pairings of a Celtic goddess with her Roman counterpart.
Dedications to “Minerva” are common in both Great Britain and continental Europe, normally without any Celtic epithet or interpretation. (Cf. Belisama for one exception.)
A similar name, Suleviae, frequently identified as a plural form of Sulis, has been attested in the epigraphic record from sites at Bath and elsewhere. The aspect of plurality links the Suleviae to a good many widely-revered divine mothers, who frequently appear with two or three primary aspects to their character.
References
- ^ Also found as Sulevis: see Suleviae.
- ^ Joyce Reynolds and Terence Volk, "Review: Gifts, Curses, Cult and Society at Bath", reviewing The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath: vol. 2 The Finds from the Sacred Spring, in Britannia 21 (1990:379-391).
- ^ http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/pcl-moe.pdf
- ^ The standard introduction to the archaeology and architectural reconstruction of the sanctuary, with its classic temple raised on a podium at the center, and the monumental baths, with the sacred spring between them, is Barry Cunliffe, ed. Roman Bath (Oxford University Press) 1969.
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