Segeta

Goddess of the Carnutes Tribe and the Senones Tribe

Segeta is mentioned in three inscriptions. One is in Bussy-Albieu (Loire) with Dunisia. In Feurs (loire) and in Sceaux-en-Gatinais (loriet).
The Inscription found in Sceaux-en-Gâtinais (Loiret) reads:

Aug(ustae) deae Segetae T(itus) Marius Priscinus v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) efficiendum curau(i)t Maria Sacra fil(ia).‘To the August goddess Segeta, Titus Marius Priscinus paid his vow willingly and deservedly, Maria Sacra, his daughter, took care to realize it.
The inscription was discovered in 1973 along with a Venus Anadyomenes and mother goddess statues. At a Gallo-Roman site dating to 1st century A.D., This site made up several water sanctuaries, which had a number of rooms, baths, piping, and yards all situated around a healing spring. It was called Aquae Segetae.

Aquae Segetae (‘The Waters of Segeta’) was an important religious water sanctuary, located in Le Préau, La Rivière, to the north of the Chemin de César, 2.3 kilometers from Sceaux-en-Gâtinais.
The site of Aquae Segetae is within the civitas Senons located about 30 kilometers that is around 18 miles northeast of the boundary with that of Carnutes. It forms with the worship sites of the water of Montbouy and Triguères, one of the centers of major pilgrimage of the territory of Senons. The sites were located on two major communication axes – the Orleans-Sens roadway and the Loing Valley waterway.

We also found dedications to Segeta engraved on disks with waves and fish along with long vases on the disks. We also find anatomic ex-votos in bronze and silver with legs, feet, masculine genital organs, and eyes on them. This indicates pilgrims came to the sanctuary to pray to the Goddess for their pain or a loved one’s pain to be healed. So one could imagine that this temple held massive beauty and importance to nearby peoples.

Segeta name is based on a Celtic root sego meaning Victory, strength. Coming from an Indo-European root Segh meaning to vanquish, to conquer. We have many that carry that root as in Segolatius (Hero of the Victory) Segorix (Victorious King) Sego-briga (fortress of Victory) and countless others. The ending of her name has a TA that is found in the ending of Rosmerta’s name. It could be thought of that her name is of action and related to war giving us (The Victorious One). Olmsted, on the other hand, gives not highly popular and dismissed among most scholars. He links her name to the Irish Segda suggesting Fortune Bringer and Propitious One.

It’s also interesting to look at The Roman deity called Segesta.

Pliny mentions her in his Natural History,

Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the gods, and of propitiating them with the salted cake; he was the first, too, as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelled, from the fact that, when in this state, it is more wholesome as an aliment. This method, however, he could only establish one way: by making an enactment, to the effect that spelled is not in a pure state for offering, except when parched. it was, too, who instituted the Fornacalia, festivals appropriated for the parching of corn, and others, observed with equal solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the “termini”, or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days, they particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities they gave the names of Seia, from ‘sero’, ‘to sow’, and of Segesta, from tile ‘segetes’, or ‘crops of standing corn’, the statues of which goddesses we still see erected in the Circus.

We also have Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo Regius Explains in his De Civitate Dei or City of God (413-426 AD).

They decided that responsibility for the land should not be entrusted to anyone god; they put the goddess Rusina in charge of the rural countryside; they consigned the mountain ranges (iuga) to the care of the god Jugatinus; the hills (colles) to the goddess Collatina, the valleys to Vallonia. They could not even find the goddess Segetia adequate on her own, to the responsibility for the crops (segetes) from start to finish. Instead, they decided that the corn when sown (sata) should have the goddess Seia to watch over it as long as the seeds were underground; as soon as the shoots came above the ground and began to form the grain (seges), they were under the charge of the goddess Segetia; but when the corn had been reaped and stored the goddess Tutilina was set over them to keep them safe (tuto). Would not anyone think that Segetia should have been competent to supervise the whole process from the first green shoots to the dry ears of corn?

So it would seem that Segeta in a linguistic view would be a martial protective goddess called upon at a time of war. From an archaeological point, she is indicated as a healing goddess presiding over curative waters. In comparative mythology gives us a similar role to the roman Segesta/segetia as a bringer of prosperity. So, in the end, she is a tri goddess with Healing Prosperity, and war functions.

Now she is not exactly found in the Carnutes Territory but one would assume that the Carnutes had her as their goddess as well as the Aquae Segetae (‘The Waters of Segeta’) was right around the border.

I usually make a pilgrimage out around my territory to a hot spring and give devotion to her there as for me it seems fitting.

Uediâ (Invocation)

I invoke Segeta

Great mother of the waters of life

Bringer of the curative flow of plenty

Vanquisher of the affliction within

Protector of the life that flows, You heal and protect all

I give offering and thanks to you

Adbertâ (Offering)

May your healing waters treat that which I unseen

Cheer to you

Thanks to you

I praise you Segeta

I go in peace