Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/41

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I. THE GAULISH PANTHEON.
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how Grannus was invoked as the equal of Aesculapius and Serapis by Caracalla.

Apollo Grannos as a god of medicinal springs cannot be severed from the Apollo Borvo of an inscription[1] at Bourbonne-les-Bains, in the Haute-Marne, which reads Deo Apollini Borvoni et Damonae, &c. The monuments show the name to have had several forms: Borvo and Bormo are said to be attested in central France, Bormanus in Provence, and Bormanicus in Spain;[2] while the god's associate is in some instances called Bormana. Thus, to return to the land of the Allobroges, one inscription at Aix-les-Bains, in Savoie, has been read: Cn. Eppius(?) Cuticus Bor. u(t) v(overat) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito); and another: M. Licin(ius) Ruso Borm. u(t) v(overat) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito). In both of these it would be natural to regard Bor and Borm as standing for Bormano, unless the preference were to be given in one or both to the female divinity, in which case the full form would be Bormanae. For it is certain at any rate that in another part of the Allobrogic land this goddess had a temple, namely, at Saint-Vulbaz, formerly called Saint-Bourbaz, near Belley, in the Ain, where an altar reads: Bormanae Aug(ustae) sacr(um) Capri(i) Atratinus. . . . . (et) Sabinian(us) d(e) s(uo) d(ant).[3] The two, Bormanus and Bormana, were worshipped at Aix-en-Diois, in the department of the Drôme; while at Bourbon-Lancy (Saône-et-Loire) the pair bore the names Bormo and Damona, as well as Borvo and Damona, as at Bourbonne-les-Bains.[4]

  1. Greppo's Eaux thermales ou minérales de la Gaule (Paris, 1846), p. 29.
  2. Vallentin, Rev. Celt. iv. 446.
  3. Ibid. iv. 6, 9.
  4. Greppo, p. 56.