Living with gods

Around the Gallo-Roman sanctuary of the Gué-de-Sciaux

Mercury

A headstone discovered in Lemonum (Poitiers), the administrative centre of the city, indicates the Pictons knew Mercury very well:

“To August and Mercury, he fulfilled his wish, Tiberius Claudius [the rest is uncertain]”.

The meaning of the inscription is clear. Tiberius, who may have been an emancipated involved in businesses, celebrated a ceremony (probably a sacrifice) to fulfil a wish made to Mercury in a temple of Poitiers. According to a common method, the inscription associated the Emperor who was the human guarantor for gains and profits. Mercury had many domains but the most common was the trade. The emblem of an innkeeper in Lyon/Lugdunum declared “Mercury promises good lucks to profits”. Thus, it’s easy to understand the success of its cult in the trading cities of Gaul, in the familial domain (the father or his emancipated* did business) as much as in the associative and corporative domains. In some cases, Mercury had an ethnic or a topic name; indeed he was a god chosen as patron saint of a community. The most famous was Mercury Arverne, great god of the city located in the region of Clermont-Ferrand; he possessed a monumental temple at the top of the Puy-de-Dôme. In the Gué-de-Sciaux, it was natural to meet him in the sanctuary of this trading city full of traffic.

Mercury was represented with a winged hat, holding a purse or a caduceus, with winged shoes; he could be accompanied by a cock or a billy goat.

*emancipated: slave freed by his master.