Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the Garonne Valley in

Gallia Aquitania Gallia Aquitania (, ), also known as Aquitaine or Aquitaine Gaul, was a list of Roman provinces, province of the Roman Empire. It lies in present-day southwest France and the Comarques of Catalonia, comarca of Val d'Aran in northeast Spain, wher ...

(now southwest

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in

Comminges The Comminges (; Occitan language, Occitan/Gascon language, Gascon: ''Comenge'') is an ancient region of southern France in the foothills of the Pyrenees, corresponding approximately to the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens in the departments of Fran ...

, in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

. He may have been a god of

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

s or the sun.

Origin and duties

Abellio is accounted for in two Roman inscriptions, one spelling the deity Abellio and the other Abelio. Some scholars have postulated that Abellio is the same name as

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

, who in Crete and elsewhere was called ''Abelios'' (Greek ), and by the Italians and some Dorians ''Apello'', and that the deity is the same as the Gallic Apollo mentioned by Caesar, and also the same as the Belis or

Belenus Belenus (Gaulish: ''Belenos'', ''Belinos'') is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic coast. Through ...

mentioned by

Tertullian Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...

and

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus () of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus'' (τῆς με ...

. Other scholars have taken the reverse position that Abellio might have been a similar solar deity of Celtic origin in

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

and the

, but the Cretan Abellio may however not be the same god as the Celtic one, but rather a different manifestation, or dialectal form, of the Greek god

or his name. In his attempt to connect the Grail legends to the Cathars, Otto Rahn identified the worship of Abellio in the Pyrenees with the Latinized form of Belenus-Apollo whom he equated with Lucifer. Though some scholars have tried to identify this god as Greek or Celtic, the fact is that the theonym Abellio is only attested among the Aquitani, a people neither Greek nor Celtic. There are three other attested Ballio names in the Roman Empire, all of them anthroponyms and without final N: one in South Italy, and two in Ancient Dalmatia.

References

Other sources

*Ellis, Peter Berresford, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''(Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): *Wood, Juliette, ''The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art'', Thorsons Publishers (2002):
Proto-Celtic — English lexicon

External links

* Gaulish gods Tree gods Apollo Solar gods {{Celt-myth-stub