Il “Mars Mavors” dei Liguri. Apporto allo studio del Marte arcaico dei Celti e dei Romani

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Starting from the examination of divine figures and inscriptions in ancient Ligurian language readable on one of the 45 engraved stones discovered in an abandoned village in a district of the Apennines formerly inhabited by Ligures Friniates, the Author compares representations concerning tridactyl gods and gods with a wheel which were found in different places of Europe. The A. deduces that these representations concern the two great gods who reign cyclically on the tripartite universe (lower world, earth, sky). Being ambivalent, they bring forth creation and fecundation, death and destruction, preserve the dualistic principle “life / death” in the universe and govern the cosmic wheels. One of them is the old master, while the other one is his iuvenis or puer servant. Cyclically one decapitates the other, conquering supremacy. In archaic Europe, the senior god had the functions of Vulcan, Saturn, Neptune and Dis Pater ; the young or child god the functions of Mars, Cupid, Apollo. On the basis of his considerations, the A. suggests new etymologies for the names Vulcanus, Vē(d)iovis, *Mauort-, Quirinus, Camulus and establishes the equivalence between the Irish god Dían Cécht and the Gaulish Dīnomogetimarus.

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