Divona

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title: "Divona" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["gaulish-goddesses", "sea-and-river-goddesses", "water-goddesses", "gallo-roman-religion"] description: "Gallo-Roman goddess of springs and rivers" topic_path: "society/religion" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divona" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Gallo-Roman goddess of springs and rivers ::

Divona (Gaulish: Deuona, Diuona, 'Divine') is a Gallo-Roman goddess of springs and rivers.

The cult of the fresh waters appears to have been particularly important among Gauls, and Celts in general, compared to the other of Indo-European-speaking peoples.

Name

The name Divona ('Divine') is a derivative of the Gaulish word deuos ('god'). Toponymic evidence suggest that sacred springs have been named for the deity, such as Dēouóna (Δηουόνα), the ancient name of Cahors, as well as Divonne and Fosse Dionne.

Attestation and cult practices

In ancient Roman religion, goddesses of freshwater sources are often associated with the deity Fons, god of fountains and wellheads, honored at the Fontinalia for his role in the public water supply for the city. Ausonius invokes fons, the manmade outlet that makes the water available to the people, with a string of adjectives: sacer, alme, perennis, / vitree, glauce, profunde, sonore, illimis, opace, "sacred, life-giving, eternal, / glassy, blue-green, measureless, sonorous, free of mud, shaded." He hails fons as the "Genius of the city" (urbis genius) having the power to offer a healing draught (medico potabilis haustu). In the next line, Ausonius says that this genius or tutelary deity is Divona in the Celtic language (Divona Celtarum lingua), that is, fons added to the divae (plural).

She is hailed (salve, compare Salve Regina) in a Latin poem by Ausonius, the 4th-century Bordelais scholar-poet who was the tutor of the emperor Gratian.

References

Bibliography

References

1. Ausonius, ''Ordo nobilium urbium'' 20.30–31 (Green lines 157–158). The adjectives are [[grammatical gender. masculine]] to agree with ''fons'' and appear in the [[vocative case]], as is customary for a [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#invocatio. Latin invocation]].
2. The color word ''glaucus'' (Greek ''glaukos'') evokes a range of grey, green, and blue indeterminately, and can often be translated as "sea-colored" or even "sky-colored." It has divine connotations and is associated with various deities, for instance, as the color of [[Athena]]'s eyes. See P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, ''Studies in Greek Colour Terminology: ΓΛΑΥΚΟΣ'' (Brill, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 40–42, and a brief discussion of the color as [[Pluto (mythology)#Vegetation and color. associated with Pluto]].
3. The phrase ''fons addite divis'' is somewhat difficult to interpret. It is sometimes construed as ''"fons" addite "divis"'', that is "Add ''(plural [[imperative mood. imperative]])'' the word ''fons'' to the word ''divae/divi''" (masculine singular ''[[divus]]''). In the plural [[dative]] and [[ablative]] cases, the masculine and feminine forms are the same, and ''divis'' could be either, but Ausonius seems to be connecting the masculine ''fons'' to the feminine ''Divona''. In Latin, the word ''[[lympha]]e'', plural, means "waters" but is also an Italic word for "nymphs"; a plural ''divae'' here might suggest the same tendency to regard water nymphs as both a singular and a plural collective. The verbal form ''addite'', however, can also be construed as a [[Latin verb. George Long]], entry on "Divona," ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'' (1854), vol. 1, p. 780; [[Edward Anwyl]], "Ancient Celtic Goddesses," ''Celtic Review'' 3 (1906–07), pp. 43–44; [[Robert E.A. Palmer]], ''Roman Religion and Roman Empire: Five Essays'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974), p. 264; [[Ken Dowden]], ''European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages'' (Routledge, 2000), p. 54.
4. [[Ausonius]], ''Ordo nobilium urbium'' 20.30 and 32 ([[Loeb Classical Library]] numbering); ''Divona'' appears in line 160 in the numbering of R.P.H. Green, ''The Works of Ausonius'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 175.

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