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Belenus (also Belenos, Belinus, Bel, Beli Mawr) is a Sun God from Celtic Mythology and, in the third century, the patron deity of the Italian city of Aquileia. Called the "Fair Shining One," (or The Shining God) he was one of the most ancient and most widely worshiped Celtic deities and is associated with the ancient fire festival and modern Sabbat Beltane.[1] He was associated with the horse (as shown by the clay horse figurine offerings at Belenos’ Sainte-Sabine shrine in Burgundy) and also the Wheel. Perhaps like Apollo - with whom he became identified in the Augustan History[2] - Belenos was thought to ride the Sun across the sky in a horse-drawn chariot.[3]

Historical cult[edit]

There are 51 known inscriptions dedicated to Belenus, mainly concentrated in Cisalpine Gaul (Aquileia/Carni), Noricum and Gallia Narbonensis, but also extend far beyond into Celtic Britain and Iberia.[2][4][5] Images of Belenus sometimes show him to be accompanied by a female, thought to be the Gaulish deity Belisama.[5]

Tertullian writing in c. 200 AD identifies Belenus as the national god of Noricum. Inscriptions dedicated to Belenus are concentrated in the Eastern Alps and Gallia Cisalpina, but there is evidence that the popularity of the god became more widespread in the Roman period. The third-century emperors Diocletian and Maximian each dedicated an inscription to Belenus in the region of Aquileia. A further 6 votive inscriptions of Belenus were discovered at Altinum, Concordia and Iulium Carnicum.[6] The soldiers of Maximinus Thrax, who laid siege to Aquileia in 238, reported seeing an appearance of the god defending the city from the air.[7]



In epigraphy, the forms Belenus, Belinus and Bellenus are on record. Other variants may be corruptions of the same name; thus, a single inscription found near Oulx has Belanus,[8] and Herodian has Belin.[9] The etymology of the name is unclear. Suggestions are informed by the identification with Apollo, but the wide range of attributes of Apollo as the god of light, knowledge, music and poetry, mantic oracles, healing and medicine, etc. opens a wide field of possible parallels. Apollo Karneios with horns from ram (beran [1]) cognates with qeren ("to shine", "have horns")[citation needed] from *qarn[2]. (For l and r relationship see liquid consonant)

The historically favoured interpretation of the name is a "bright/shining one," from a root *bhel "to shine", interpreting Belenus as solar deity in origin[5][10] (compare the first element in Beltane, from a *belo-te(p)nia "bright fire").

Alternatively, the name may be from a Proto-Celtic *Guelenos, containing a root for "source, well", suggesting identification as a god of healing springs.[11]


Renaissance scholar Pierre Pithou explained the name as deriving from Greek belos "arrow", here taken to refer to the sun's rays, but even in early modern scholarship, the simplistic identification of Apollo/Belenus with the Sun was questioned; Bernard de Montfaucon argued that by the time of the identification of Apollo Belenus, the ancients in their civil worship had long ceased to treat Apollo and Sol as the same deity.[13] Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with Semitic Bel, Belus.[14] In this context, linguistically Bel is an East Semitic form cognate with Northwest Semitic Baal with the same meaning.





Derived names[edit]

The Welsh given name Llywelyn combines the theonyms Lugus and Belenus.



Diodorus Siculus named Cornwall (Cornovii, that can originate from "horn") Belerion, the first recorded place name in the British Isles. This is usually derived from the root bel "bright" (meaning "shining land" or similar) and not necessarily connected to the theonym.


  1. ^ "Belenus." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 02 Jul. 2014. <>.
  3. ^
  4. ^ Roman Inscriptions of Britain Archived July 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. (RIB 611).
  6. ^ Maier, Bernhard (2012). Geschichte und Kultur der Kelten. C.H.Beck. 
  11. ^ Bernhard Maier, Lexikon der keltischen Religion und Kultur, 40 f.