Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the

Garonne The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – ...

Valley in

Gallia Aquitania Gallia Aquitania ( , ), also known as Aquitaine or Aquitaine Gaul, was a province of the Roman Empire. It lies in present-day southwest France, where it gives its name to the modern region of Aquitaine. It was bordered by the provinces of Gal ...

(now southwest

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in

Comminges The Comminges (; Occitan/ Gascon: ''Comenge'') is an ancient region of southern France in the foothills of the Pyrenees, corresponding closely to the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens in the department of Haute-Garonne. This natural region is nor ...

, in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...

. He may have been a god of

apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s or the sun.

Origin and duties

Abellio is accounted for in two Roman inscriptions, one spelling the deity Abellio and the other Abelio. Some scholars have postulated that Abellio is the same name as

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

, who in Crete and elsewhere was called ''Abelios'' (Greek ), and by the Italians and some Dorians ''Apello'', and that the deity is the same as the Gallic Apollo mentioned by

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...

, and also the same as the Belis or

Belenus Belenus (Gaulish: ''Belenos'', ''Belinos'') is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic coast. Through ''interpretati ...

mentioned by

Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...

and

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death o ...

. Other scholars have taken the reverse position that Abellio might have been a similar

solar deity A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. Th ...

of Celtic origin in

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

and the

, but the Cretan Abellio may however not be the same god as the Celtic one, but rather a different manifestation, or

dialectal The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

form, of the Greek god

or his name. In his attempt to connect the Grail legends to the Cathars,

Otto Rahn Otto Wilhelm Rahn (18 February 1904 – 13 March 1939) was a German writer, medievalist, Ariosophist, and an officer of the SS and researcher into the Grail myths. He was born in Michelstadt, Germany, and died in Söll ( Kufstein, Tyrol) i ...

identified the worship of Abellio in the Pyrenees with the Latinized form of Belenus-Apollo whom he equated with Lucifer. Though some scholars have tried to identify this god as Greek or Celtic, the fact is that the theonym Abellio is only attested among the Aquitani, a people neither Greek nor Celtic. There are three other attested Ballio names in the Roman Empire, all of them anthroponyms and without final N: one in South Italy, and two in Ancient Dalmatia.

References

Other sources

*Ellis, Peter Berresford, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''(Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): *Wood, Juliette, ''The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art'', Thorsons Publishers (2002):
Proto-Celtic — English lexicon

External links

* Gaulish gods Tree gods Apollo Solar gods {{Celt-myth-stub