These Pagan Portals are all current works in progress, serialised here on the Pagan Collective blog with each chapter being open for comment. In due course the entire script will be published as a Pagan Portal book.

Ataegina as a Tribal Goddess.

Ataegina was a goddess of the land, and numerous tribes inhabited the Iberian Peninsula. It is known that the Vettones, Celti-Iberians, Lusitanians, and Carpetani tribes gathered at her Sanctuary of Santa María del Trampal. It shouldn’t surprise us that these tribes chose the goddess’s sanctuary as a meeting place. Throughout history and across different geographies, we find places of worship or locations with a notable religious character that also brought together people from diverse communities, such as the Oracle of Delphi. These tribal gatherings at the grounds of the Sanctuary of Ataegina could have been the setting for agreements as well as possible competitions or tournaments in honour of the goddess. Ataegina, as a goddess, would have acted as a divine witness to agreements. As we know, she is a goddess of justice, which is one more reason to have her as a witness, and why it would have been important for tribal chiefs to gather in her sanctuary. She is an Iberian goddess; she belongs to the land, and these particular tribes occupy her lands. Therefore, we should expect that the land is also an important link between the people of the area, the place where they come together under the gaze of the goddess.

Spirit of the Sacred Grove.

Ataegina’s connection to her sacred grove is linked to the Roman interpretation of the goddess. The earliest mentions of her grove refer to it as Lucus Feroniae, located near Emerita Augusta, modern-day Mérida. Here again, we encounter syncretism and the goddess Feroniae. This sacred place of worship in Iberia would be twinned with the Lucus Feroniae of Capena in Italy. Ataegina is the goddess of the forest, of nature, whom the Romans assimilated to the Roman goddess of Etruscan origin. This place would come to be associated with the wild and fertile aspects of the goddess and would have served as a meeting place for her devotees.

Ataegina and Endovelico.

The goddess Ataegina is paired with a consort god, Endovelicus. We are presented here with the most powerful gods of pre-Roman Iberia. As we saw happening with Ataegina, we find altars and other sacred objects with different variations of the name Endovelicus, including Indovélico, Andieco, Endovólico, and Ennólico, among others. Just like Ataegina, he is a god associated with the underworld, waters, and springs, as well as healing. From this strong association with the healing arts, we can try to understand why the Romans attempted to equate Endovelico with Asclepius. Perhaps they saw him as the Iberian version of the popular healing god, although they also interpreted him as Ares, possibly due to the association of both Endovelico and Ataegina with Proserpina and Ares.

Endovelicus, like Ataegina, is a god of spring, and he is associated with flowers and the return to life after winter. Endovelicus is a liminal god, like his companion. He rules the underworld, but also everything that blooms or is born on the surface. They are also associated with the world of dreams; in fact, prophetic dreams were incubated by devotees who asked Endovelico for advice in dream rituals performed at his altars or temples.

Despite his underworld nature, Endovelico is a benevolent god. He is not only a healing goddess, but also a god who guides the deceased on their final journey, together with Ataegina.

A Goddess at the Crossroads.

We have seen how Ataegina is a liminal goddess, representing the goddess of the crossroads. She stands between sunlight and night and its stars; she walks on the land and reigns the underworld; she stands between life and death, between winter and spring. She also stands at the crossroads of a changing era and paradigm. From being a pre-Roman tribal goddess, she is crowned Dea Sancta by the Romans, who readily adopted her due to her parallels with their goddess Proserpina. She is a goddess between worlds; she inhabits the lands between the Tagus and Guadiana rivers and beyond. As the most important goddess of the Iberian Peninsula, we should be able to see the peninsula as a liminal place between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the most northern land in the European continent, just a few kilometres from Africa. Iberia is a bit like a crossroads, which is why It should come as no surprise that she is also a goddess of crossroads. As the goddess of shepherds, it is important to mention her ability to open paths, and these paths meet at crossroads. It was not uncommon for shepherds to gather at these crossroads, where not only did social encounters take place, but also economic transactions or bartering between them. We have explored her connection with Hekate. It’s not something you can find in books, but something I have experienced in my personal practice. When I open myself to receive the divine, the two have appeared together, and it’s very interesting that both have appeared together in the same place, at that crossroads between Andalusia and Castile.

Ataegina in Roman Hispania.

A key to understanding the cult of Ataecina under the Roman Empire in the Iberian Peninsula is the Interpretatio Romana, which we have already briefly mentioned. This assimilation stems from the interpretation of local gods and equating them with their own deities, based on shared characteristics or attributes. We have seen this clearly with Ataecina: For the Romans, she is Proserpina, Queen of the underworld; she is Feronia. Thanks to these shared attributes, Romans not only embraced the local deity but also adopted and reinterpreted her cult. Ataegina undergoes a profound transformation at the hands of the Romans. In my opinion, perhaps one of the places where we see this most clearly is in the magic associated with Ataegina, especially in her curse tablets or Defixio. Ataegina is, in a way, equated with Sulis Miberva of Bath and others. We will explore the magical aspects of the goddess in the next instalment, as well as some magical practices in the Roman West.  

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