EPONA  , a goddess of horses, asses and mules, worshipped by the

Romans, though of foreign, probably Gallic, origin . The majority of inscriptions and images bearing her name have been found in Gaul, Germany and the Danube countries; of the few that occur in Rome itself most were exhumed on the site of the barracks of the equites singulares, a foreign imperial body-guard mainly recruited from the Batavians . Her name does not appear in Tertullian's list of the indigetes di, and Juvenal contrasts her worship unfavourably with the old Roman Numa ritual . Her cult does not appear to have been introduced before imperial times, when she is often called Augusta and invoked on behalf of the emperor and the imperial house . Her chief function, however, was to see that the beasts of burden were duly fed, and to protect them against accidents and malicious influence . In the countries in which the worship of Epona was said to have had its origin it was a common belief that certain beings were in the habit of casting a spell over stables during the night . The Romans used to place the image of the goddess, crowned with flowers on festive occasions, in a sort of shrine in the centre of the architrave of the stable . In art she is generally represented seated, with her hand on the head of the accompanying horse or animal . See Tertullian, Apol . 16; Juvenal viii . 157; Prudentius, Apoth . 197; Apuleius, Metam. iii .

27; articles in Daremberg and Saglio's Dict.

des antiquites and Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie .