Cariocecus or Cariociecus was the

god of war A war god in mythology associated with war, combat, or bloodshed. They occur commonly in both monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Unlike most gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions, monotheistic deities have traditionally been p ...

in the mythology of various Iberian tribes, in the region then known as

Hispania Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hisp ...

. Through conquest and cultural overlay, he became syncretised with the

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

god

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

and the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

god Ares. The

Lusitanians The Lusitanians ( la, Lusitani) were an Indo-European speaking people living in the west of the Iberian Peninsula prior to its conquest by the Roman Republic and the subsequent incorporation of the territory into the Roman province of Lusitania. ...

practiced human sacrifice and when a priest wounded a prisoner in the stomach they made predictions by the way the victim fell down and by the appearance of the victim's innards. Sacrifices were not limited to prisoners but also included animals, horses and goats specifically. That was confirmed by Strabo: "They offer a goat and prisoners and horses". The Lusitanians cut the right hand of prisoners and consecrated it to Cariocecus.

References

* Michael Jordan, Encyclopedia of Gods, Kyle Cathie Limited, 2002 Lusitanian gods War gods Martian deities {{Deity-stub