Esus
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In Gaulish religion, Esus or Hesus ("lord" or "master") was a god of agriculture, war and commerce. He was associated with the bull. In art, he was portrayed cutting branches from trees with his axe; see for example the Pillar of the Boatmen among the Parisii and the pillar from Trier among the Treveri.
It is possible that the Essuvi of Gaul took their name from this deity.
Was this god the Celtic Mars?
The difficulty of working out to which deity inhabitants of Roman Britain are referring when they mention Mars is profound. A well-known section in Lucan's Bellum civile talks about the gory sacrificial offerings proffered to a triad of Celtic deities: Teutates, Esus, and Taranis. Among a pair of later reviewers on Lucan's work, one identifies Teutates with Mercury and Esus with Mars. The continental Celtic deity “Mars” plainly exemplifies the problem with finding syncretism between Roman and Celtic gods. The likely reason for this ostensible muddle in equating Roman with Celtic gods, occurring in other instances, is that Celtic deities are not constrained to specific functions. The Celtic peoples seem to have believed in immanence, seeing a single divine spirit, character or power as typical of many different aspects of reality, a belief emblematic of animism.So “Mercury” as a spirit of interaction may be a characteristic of the warrior, while “Mars” as the spirit of martial character may serve to shield the tribe from invasion. This is one explanation of how a spirit of transit such as Mercury may have come to be equated with such a spirit of tribal unity as Teutates.