 in romano-british culture and germanic polytheism, the alaisiagae (possibly "dispatching terrors" or "all-victorious") were a pair of celtic and germanic goddesses deifying victory. ==centres of worship== the alaisiagae were germanic deities who were worshipped in roman britain, altar-stones raised to them having been recovered in the united kingdom at vercovicium (housesteads roman fort) at hadrian's wall in england. another centre of worship was perhaps the town of bitburg, near the german-belgian border, which was called âbeda vicus,â which although latin derives from either celtic or germanic "village of beda." in roman times, this was situated in variously celtic and germanic territory, west of the rhine and subject under to various tribal groups often with mixed ethnic definitions. ==votive inscriptions== one of the votive inscriptions to these goddesses reads: *deo marti thincso et dvabvs alaisagis bede et fimmilene et n avg germ cives tvihanti vslm *"to the god mars thincsus and the two alaisagae, beda and fimmilena, and the divine spirit of the emperor, the german tribesmen from tuihantis willingly and deservedly fulfill their vow." mars thicsus is thought to be the germanic war-god tiw who was also connected to oath-taking and the thing, a kind of judicial gathering. the name of the germanic soldiers "tuihantis" also attests to this connection with the one-handed sword god tiw. the second inscription reads: deabvs alaisiagis bavdihillie et friagabi et n(umini) avg(usti) n(umerus) hnavdifridi v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) the third word is often mis-reported as beginning with bo not ba in order to make it appear more celtic and less germanic. *these goddesses are possibly recorded on two inscriptions in greek recorded in l'annÃ©e Ãpigraphique for 1973. ==syncretism== the goddesses called the alaisiagae are named on altar-stones from the same fort on hadrian's wall as being parallel with two germanic goddesses: celtic boudihillia is equated with germanic fimmilena and celtic beda is equated with germanic friagabis. these parallel goddesses are taken to be germanic not only because of clues in the inscriptions and the germanic mercenaries at the wall at the time, but also because they both have an initial âf-,â a sound not known to have developed in celtic at this time. equally, the two goddesses are not known to be roman. beda may have been an abbreviation for ricagambeda since the two names share similar semantics. boudihillia and beda are more likely celtic names however. ==archeological setting== the altar stones of the alais
Briton_goddesses Death_goddesses Germanic_goddesses War_goddesses