Crossword-Solution: EPONA 5 letters, 3 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 7

Certain names of deities such as Tarvos (the bull), Moccos (the pig), Epona (the goddess of horses), Damona (the goddess of cattle), Mullo (the ass), as well as the fact that the ancient Britons, according to Caesar, preserved the hen, the goose, and the hare, but did not kill and eat them, all point to the fact that in these countries as elsewhere certain animals were held in supreme respect and were carefully guarded from harm.

Certain of the divine names of the historic period, like Artio (the bear-goddess), Moccus (the pig), Epona (the mare), and Damona (the sheep), bear the unmistakable impress of having been at one time those of animals.

And yet, although this goddess enjoyed the same conditions as, for instance Jupiter _Dolichenus_ whom the cohorts of Commagene introduced into Europe, it does not appear that she ever received the homage of many strangers; it does not appear, above all, that druidism ever assumed the shape of "mysteries of Epona" into which Greeks and Romans would have asked to be initiated.

EPONA, a goddess of horses, asses and mules, worshipped by the Romans, though of foreign, probably Gallic, origin.

The Romans, originally, were compelled to be an agricultural people, and their gods were for the most part deities who presided over agriculture, as Tertullian early remarked (Sterculus, Epona, Mutunus, etc.), and their worship was closely connected with the stages of cultivation.