Nimmedus Aseddiagus the God of the Sacred Grove

Nimmedus Aseddiagus is a god of the Astures known from a Roman-period altar discovered on 23 July 1919 during works in the railway-station street of Ujo, in the Caudal valley of central Asturias. The dedicant, Gaius Sulpicius Africanus, bears fully Roman names, showing an outsider honouring the indigenous divinity of the place. The first element of the theonym corresponds to the Celtic word nemeton, the sacred grove or open-air sanctuary, so that the god personifies the woodland holy place itself; the epithet Aseddiagus has been explained from the Indo-European root for 'sitting', giving readings such as 'the seated one of the sacred grove'. The inscription is a key witness to the survival of grove sanctuaries among the peoples of northern Hispania under Rome.

Domains

• sacred groves

Powers

• to preside over the sacred grove where worship and communal rites took place

Epithets

• Aseddiago

Sources

• Diego Santos, Francisco, Epigrafía romana de Asturias, Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1959 (2nd ed. 1985).
• Marco Simón, Francisco, 'Religion and Religious Practices of the Ancient Celts of the Iberian Peninsula', e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies 6, 2005, pp. 287-345.
• Olivares Pedreño, Juan Carlos, Los dioses de la Hispania Céltica, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia / Universidad de Alicante, 2002.