easily be regarded as their
ancestor.[105]

3. The hammer and the cup are also the symbols of a god called Silvanus,
identified by M. Mowat with Esus,[106] a god represented cutting down a
tree with an axe. Axe and hammer, however, are not necessarily
identical, and the symbols are those of Dispater, as has been seen. A
purely superficial connection between the Roman Silvanus and the Celtic
Dispater may have been found by Gallo-Roman artists in the fact that
both wear a wolf-skin, while there may once have been a Celtic wolf
totem-god of the dead.[107] The Roman god was also associated with the
wolf. This might be regarded as one out of many examples of a mere
superficial assimilation of Roman and Celtic divinities, but in this
case they still kept certain symbols of the native Dispater--the cup and
hammer. Of course, since the latter was also a god of fertility, there
was here another link with Silvanus, a god of woods and vegetation. The
cult of the god was widespread--in Spain, S. Gaul, the Rhine provinces,
Cisalpine Gaul, Central Europe and Britain. But one inscription gives
the name Selvanos, and it is not impossible that there was a native god
Selvanus. If so, his name may have been derived from _selva_,
"possession," Irish _sealbh_, "possession," "cattle," and he may have
been a chthonian god of riches, which in primitive communities consisted
of cattle.[108] Domestic animals, in Celtic mythology, were believed to
have come from the god's land. Selvanus would thus be easily identified
with Silvanus, a god of flocks.

Thus the Celtic Dispater had various names and forms in different
regions, and could be assimilated to different foreign gods. Since Earth
and Under-earth are so nearly connected, this divinity may once have
been an Earth-god, and as such perhaps took the place of an earlier
Earth-mother, who now became his consort or his mother. On a monument
from Salzbach, Dispater is accompanied by a goddess called Aeracura,
holding a basket of fruit, and on another monument from Ober-Seebach,
the companion of Dispater holds a cornucopia. In the latter instance
Dispater holds a hammer and cup, and the goddess may be Aeracura.
Aeracura is also associated with Dispater in several inscriptions.[109]
It is not yet certain that she is a Celtic goddess, but her presence
with this evidently Celtic god is almost sufficient proof of the fact.
She may thus represent the old Earth-goddess, whose place the native
Dispater