Faun

A faun touching the flute, by Pal Szinyei Merse.

Fauno (Latin: Faunus 'the flatterer' —from favere— or perhaps 'the bearer' —from fari —) was, in Roman mythology, one of the most popular and ancient divinities among the di indigetes (indigenous gods), identified with the Greek Pan due to the similarity of their attributes.

Fauno was the god of the fields and forests, protector of the herds, making them more fertile and defending them from the attacks of vermin. In another aspect, he was considered a prophetic god who revealed the future through voices heard in the forests or through dreams; he was sometimes considered to be responsible for nighttime nightmares. He was represented with a lascivious character, constantly chasing the nymphs of the forests. It was thought that he could sometimes send curses against the peasants, so they rubbed their bodies with certain protective herbs. He is related to Luperco and Silvano. The term faunos, in the plural, refers to creatures of the woods with goat's horns and hooves, equivalent to Greek satyrs.

Myth

Baby boy playing a Pan flute, by Hans Makart.

According to the most extended version, Fauno appears as the third of the kings of Latium, son of del Pico, grandson of Saturn and father of Latino with the nymph Marica (who in other versions appears as his mother). Like his two predecessors, Faunus had promoted agriculture and cattle-raising among his subjects, and would also have distinguished himself as a hunter. It is believed that during his reign Heracles (called Hercules by the Latins) and the Arcadian Evander, to which he would have granted an extensive territory in what would later be the city of Rome.

Fauno plays a very prominent role in the mythical history of Lazio, because, regardless of what he did for agriculture, he was considered one of the great founders of the religion of the country, for which Lactantius places him at the height of Numa Pompilius. He would have reigned around the year 1300 BC. C., and would have been the first to erect temples to the gods, called fana , dictating the rules of worship and raising his father, Pico, and his mother, Canente, to the altars.. He would also have established human sacrifices in honor of his grandfather, Saturn, and would have consecrated a temple to Luperco on the Palatine Hill. After his death he was elevated to the position of tutelary deity of the country, for his many services to agriculture and livestock.

There is a tradition that Numa, by means of a stratagem, forced Pico and his son Fauno to reveal to him the secret of invoking lightning from the sky (Elicio) and of purifying things by striking them with lightning.

In the Dionysiacs, by Nono of Panopolis, Faun accompanied Dionysus when he went to the Indian campaign.

According to one version, Fauno's wife was Bona Dea, a model of chastity and virtue until one day she found a jug of wine and got drunk. When her husband found her, he was so enraged at her that he beat her to death with myrtle sticks. Then, full of remorse, he paid her goddess honors and instituted a cult in her honor. Another version affirms that Bona Dea was the daughter of Fauno, and that by rejecting her father's requests for love, he hit her with myrtle rods, and that she did not achieve her goal until they both metamorphosed into snakes. This version explains why men and myrtle were excluded from the Bona Dea festivities, held during the first days of December.

Roles and functions

Fauno was worshiped in two different roles: as the god of fields and shepherds, and as an oracular and prophetic divinity. As a rustic deity, he was a spirit of the forest, plains, and fields, and when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuo (Latin for Innuus).

As a prophetic god, called by the name Fatuo (Latin Fatuus, from fatuari, "to be possessed of prophetic delirium"), he was believed to reveal the future to man part in dreams and part through voices of unknown origin, which were communicated to those who went to sleep in their enclosures, lying on the fleece of the sacrificed lambs. What was Faun in this regard to the male sex, his sister and wife Fauna or Fatua (sometimes considered her mother or daughter and related to Bona Dea or Maya) was female, for which they bore the epithets Fatuus and Fatua or Fatuellus and Fatuella respectively, derived from fari (to speak) and fatum (fate, destiny). Faun and his sister Fauna would be the parents of satyrs and fauns. His first son was Esterculio, or Esterquilino ( Sterquilinus ), who discovered the technique of fertilizing the fields with manure, for which he was included among the gods.

Faunus and Fauna were said to give their oracles in Saturnian verse, from which it may perhaps be inferred that collections of oracles in this meter existed in Latium. William Warde Fowler suggested that Faunus is identical with Favonius, one of the Roman wind gods, called Anemoi. Due to the way in which he gave his oracles, Faunus was considered the author of spectral apparitions and terrifying sounds, and therefore he was described as a lascivious and voluptuous god, who dwelt in the forests and was fond of nymphs.

Worship

Modern copy of the ancient Roman statuette in bronze of Fauno dancing that gives name to the Casa del Fauno de Pompeya.

The places where these oracles were given were sacred groves: one near Tibur (present-day Tivoli), around the Albunea spring, and another on the Aventine, near Rome. The rites observed in the first place are meticulously described by Virgil: a priest offered a sheep and other sacrifices, and the person who consulted the oracle had to sleep one night on the skin of the victim, then the god gave an answer to his questions either in a dream or through supernatural voices. Ovid describes similar rites held on the Aventine. The pine and wild olive trees were sacred to him, and the animals most often sacrificed to him were young goats and lambs.

In Rome there was a round temple of Faun, surrounded by columns, on Mount Caelius, and another was built for it in 196 BC. C. on the Tiber Island, where sacrifices were offered to him on the Ides of February, the day the Fabii had perished in the Cremera.

The Christian writer Justin Martyr identified Faun with Luperco (the one who protects from the wolf), the protector of cattle, following Livio, who named his appearance Inuo after the god who was originally worshiped in the Lupercalia, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of their temple (February 15), when their priests, the lupercos, wore goatskins and beat the spectators with goatskin belts.

Faunalia

The festival of the Faunalia, or Faunales, in honor of the god Fauno, was celebrated by the peasants at two times of the year. In the first, which took place on February 11, 13 and 15, the trip of Fauno from Arcadia to Italy was commemorated, and a sacrifice was made on the Tiberina island; in the second, which was celebrated on November 9 or December 5, he was asked to protect them and be benevolent with them. During the Faunalia, incense was burned on the god's altars, libations of wine were made, and sheep and goats were immolated.

Geniuses

One of the models of Wilhelm von Gloeden posing for the photographic series "Il Grande Fauno".

Just as Pan was accompanied by the Paniskoi, or small Panes, the existence of many fauns in addition to the main one was also assumed, an idea that seems to have originated from the way in which the god manifested These fauns are genies of the wild forest, described as monsters, with half the body from the waist down of a billy goat, with a small tail at the tip of the spine, goat ears, and horns. As accessories, they covered themselves sometimes with panther skin and vine or pine wreaths mixed with clusters on the head.

As Faunus and, later, fauni were believed to be cheerful and capricious beings, especially fond of frightening people in various ways, the conjecture that Faunus is a euphemism related to faveo.

Faunus thus gradually came to be identified with the Arcadian Pan, and fauns as identical with the Greek satyrs, the wild and orgiastically drunken followers of Dionysus; hence Ovid's use of the expression Fauni et Satyri fratres ('faun and satyr brothers'). However, fauns and satyrs were originally quite different creatures: both had horns and resembled goats underneath. the waist and humans above it, but originally satyrs had human feet and fauns goat hooves.