Ocelus is a

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 ...

known from three inscriptions in

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of ''Britannia'' after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. Julius Caes ...

. He is twice invoked on dedications at

Caerwent Caerwent () is a village and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located about five miles west of Chepstow and 11 miles east of Newport. It was founded by the Romans as the market town of '' Venta Silurum'', an important settlement of th ...

: one stone is the base of a statue of which only a pair of human feet and a pair of goose feet survive. The invocation is to Mars Lenus or Ocelus Vellaunus and to the

numen Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows:For a more extensive account, refer to Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (), a god "whose numen everything obeys", ...

(divine spirit) of the emperor, and was dedicated on 23 August AD 152. The second Caerwent inscription dedicates an altar to Mars Ocelus. The god was also venerated at

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

, where he was once more equated with

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 ...

and again linked to the imperial cult. So Ocelus seems to have been a British, perhaps

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

god, associated with Mars, probably in the latter's Celtic capacity as a protector. At Caerwent he is linked with Lenus, a Treveran healing deity, and with Vellaunus, who is also recorded among the Gaulish

Allobroges The Allobroges (Gaulish language, Gaulish: *''Allobrogis'', 'foreigner, exiled'; ) were a Gauls, Gallic people dwelling in a large territory between the Rhône river and the Alps during the Iron Age Europe, Iron Age and the Roman period. The Allob ...

; the name "Vellaunus" has been glossed as 'chief' or 'commander'. One of the Caerwent inscriptions reads as follows: (VSLM stands for ''uotum soluit libens merito'', a familiar votive formula; an ''optio'' was an officer subordinate to a centurion.)

References

External links

Roman Altar found in Caerwent
{{Celtic mythology (ancient) Gods of the ancient Britons Martian deities