Artaius is a
Celt
The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...
ic epithet
[Xavier Delamarre (2003). ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise.'' Paris: Editions Errance, p.56] applied to the Roman god
Mercury during the
Romano-Celtic period. It is known from a single inscription from
Beaucroissant
Beaucroissant () is a commune in the Isère department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France.
The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Manants'' or ''Manantes''.
Geography
Beaucroissant is located some 32 km so ...
in the
Isère
Isère ( , ; ; , ) is a landlocked Departments of France, department in the southeastern French Regions of France, region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Named after the river Isère (river), Isère, it had a population of 1,271,166 in 2019. :
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MERCVRIO
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AVG ARTAIO
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SACR
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SEX GEMINIVS
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CVPITVS
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EX VOTO
:''"To the august Mercury Artaius, Sextus Geminius Cupitus (has dedicated this) sacred (stone)
in fulfillment of a vow."''
In
Gaulish
Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...
, the word ''artos'' means ‘bear’, and ''artaios'' would have been a derivative
(meaning something like ‘ursine’).
Miranda Green considers Mercury Artaius to have been a
bear-god. It is also possible that Artaius is derived from a place name (so that, as an "Artaian Mercury", he would only indirectly have any association with bears). Based on the inscription found at Beaucroissant, Auguste Longnon surmised that the location was once called Artay; there is a similarly named town,
Artaix, in Saône-et-Loire.
[Longnon, Auguste, ''Les noms de lieu de la France'', Paris, 1920, p. 114.]
References
Gaulish gods
Votive offering
Mercurian deities
Bear deities
{{Celtic mythology (ancient)