Vates
The earliest Latin writers used
vates to denote "prophets" and soothsayers in general; the word fell into disuse in Latin until it was revived by
Virgil [
1]. Then
Ovid could describe himself as the
vates of
Eros (
Amores 3.9).
According to
Strabo [
2]
Diodorus Siculus [
3] and
Poseidonius, the
vates (ουατεις) were one of three classes of
Celtic
priesthood, the other two being the
druids and the
bards. The Vates had the role of
seers and performed the
sacrifice, under the presidence of a druid. Their role was therefore corresponding to that of an
Adhvaryu in
Vedic religion. Celtic
Vates is continued by Irish
fáith "prophet, seer"[
4].
It is unknown whether the Latin and
Gaulish usages are
cognates, or if the former should be considered a Celtic
loanword. The word may be derived from a
PIE root
*wāt "to inspire, spiritually arouse", however that root may not be as old as
Proto-Indo-European, since it is only certainly attested for Celtic and Germanic (but it may be present natively in Italic, and possibly also in Greek and Indo-Iranian).
Virgil uses the Latin
vannus "
winnowing fan" (from
*wat-nos, compare
Old High German wadal, modern German
Wedel, with the same meaning, from
*wat-lo) for something borne about in the
Bacchic festival, suggesting that the root may have had an
ecstatic sense in Italic also.
Rübekeil (
2003) suggested that the name of the
Germanic god
*Wōđinaz may in fact be an early loanword, an adjective
*vatinos based on Celtic
vates.
Vates, or
Ovates, make up one of the three grades of the
Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a
Neo-druidry order based in
England.
*
Classical descriptions of the vates*
"The Atrebates": A silver coin of Verica, leader of the
Atrebates, minted between 25 and 35 CE, interpreted as depicting a
vates on the reverse
*Perkins, Caroline A.,"Ovid's Erotic Vates" in
Helios, March, 2000 [
5]
*Rübekeil, Ludwig,
Wodan und andere forschungsgeschichtliche Leichen: exhumiert, Beiträge zur Namenforschung (2003), 25–42. [
6]
