Gaulish god of eloquence and letters known primarily from a single 2nd-century AD text, supported by some scattered inscriptions. The Greek writer Lucian of Samosata describes a picture of Ogmios he encountered in southern Gaul near the modern city of Marseille. In it Ogmios is a bald old man leading an apparently happy and willing band of men who are attached to him by chains connecting their ears with his tongue. Lucian's informant told him that Ogmios was identical with the Graeco-Roman hero become deity Hercules, in part because of his great strength. Although Hercules is usually seen as a young, muscular man with a full head of hair, the picture did portray Ogmios with Hercules' bow and club. The German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer depicted this deity. Commonly compared with the Irish Ogma.
Bibliography
- Fernand Beno't, ‘L'Ogmios de Lucien, la “tête coupée”, et le cycle mythologique irlandais et gallois’, Ogam,
5 (1953), 33–42 - Françoise Le Roux, ‘Le Dieu celtique aux liens de l'Ogmios de Lucien à l'Ogmios de Dürer’, Ogam,
12 (1960), 209–34
