ARTHUR AND MARS THE HUNTER: TAKING ANOTHER LOOK AT THE GOD ALATOR

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For my previous piece on the god Mars Alator, please see

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/04/arthur-and-god-alator-of-south-shields.html.

As I've only recently made a case for Arthur being descended from the Selgovae or 'Hunters' in the Scottish Lowlands, I thought it would be a good idea to more closely examine the theory that proposes Alator was a deity of the hunt.  For if he were, this would lend extra support to the idea that Arthur was himself of the hunting tribe. 

Alator is believed to derive not from a Celtic root, but from a very rare, attested Latin word.  Classical etymologists derived this word thusly:

"Roman cavalry units are called 'alae' ('wings'): a while back, I was looking up the etymology of Mars Alator, and came up with bits of Servius' commentary on Vergil (Aeneid 4.V.121) , and Isidorus (Origines 10, 282) to the effect that Alatores ('wingers') act like beaters in a hunt, making a sort of outflanking pincer movement around the game, then chasing it toward the main body of hunters - in a military context, this main body would be the legionary infantry, waiting to chop up the enemy in the centre, while the cavalry contain them on the 'wings'. Then, presumably, when the enemy breaks and runs, the cavalry gets its fun in fast pursuit, hunting down what's left - something the Roman heavy infantry isn't equipped (or by this stage in a fight, much inclined) to do." 

[from http://www.novaroma.org/forum/mainlist/2000/2000-05-29.html]

Now, the question we must ask is whether it seems reasonable to provide a British Mars with an obscure Latin epithet. To me, this does not seems very plausible - unless, of course, we allow for the Selgovae/'Hunters' north of the Wall being referred to obliquely or metaphorically as alatores, i.e. the hunters who formed cavalry wings.  In which case, Mars Alator may have been a designation for the war god of the Selgovae.  

I've mentioned before that the 'hunters of Banna' may be a Latin rendering for a group of Selgovae at that Roman fort and not solely a reference to a special military unit in charge of supplying wild game to the garrison.  

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A rival etymology would have Alator mean something like 'he who rears or nourishes [his people]' (see Anne Ross, PAGAN CELTIC BRITAIN: STUDIES IN ICONOGRAPHY AND TRADITION, 1996, p. 227).  This presumably relates the name to the Celtic root *al-e/o, 'nourish'.  We may compare the Latin cognate alo (https://latinlexicon.org/paradigms.php?p1=1000940).   We cannot discount this theory.  The Roman Mars had a pronounced agricultural as well as military function, so it is quite feasible that in the former capacity he may have been referred to as 'the Nourisher.'