Latobius was a sky and mountain

Celtic god The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon ...

worshipped by the people of

Noricum Noricum () is the Latin name for the kingdom or federation of tribes that included most of modern Austria and part of Slovenia. In the first century AD, it became a province of the Roman Empire. Its borders were the Danube to the north, R ...

(modern

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

). During ancient Roman times he was equated with aspects of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. Votive inscriptions for ''Mars Latobius''Duval, Paul-Marie. "Chronique gallo-romaine". In: ''Revue des Études Anciennes''. Tome 69, 1967, n°3-4. p. 345. www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_1967_num_69_3_3798 are typically found on mountain tops (e.g., on the highest peak of the

Koralpe The Koralpe (, , or ), also referred to as ''Koralm'' (), is a mountain range in southern Austria which separates eastern Carinthia from southern Styria. The southern parts of the range extend into Slovenia. Running from north to south, it drain ...

mountain range, between the Lavant and Mur valleys) and on passes in former Noricum.

Etymology

Xavier Delamarre Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language. With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing edi ...

proposed to derive the

theonym A theonym (from Greek (), 'god', attached to (), ) is a proper name of a deity. Theonymy, the study of divine proper names, is a branch of onomastics, the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. Theonymy helps develop an und ...

''Latobios'' from an earlier *''Lātu-biyo''- ('Furious Striker'), composed of the root ''lāto-'' ('furor, ardour'; cf. OIr. ''láth'', Welsh ''lawd'') attached to *''biyo''- ('strike'; cf. OIr. ''fu-bae'' 'harming').

References

;Bibliography * * Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. Miranda Green. Thames and Hudson Ltd. London. 1997 Sky and weather gods Gaulish gods Mountain gods {{Deity-stub