The History and Significance of the god Faunus

There are two divine characters in Roman mythology with the name Faunus. In the first, Faunus was the Roman god of the countryside and identified with the Greek deity Pan, the god of the mountainside. He is said to have been the son of Mars onto a local princess, Mercury or Picus and the grandson of the god Saturn (Cronos in Greek mythology). Some accounts say that as the son of Mercury, he killed strangers and then offered them as sacrifices to his father. Mercury then gave his son the hindquarters and hoofs of a goat in punishment.

Faunus was credited with incredible prophetic powers which led to the Romans, on occasion, to be inspired to renew efforts on the battlefield in the face of defeat. This could emphasis the reason why Faunus was seen as the son or descendant of the war god Mars.

At the Lupercalia, it was Faunus who was the divinity most honoured, and we know this from such ancient authors as Ovid. Yet he had his own festival on the Ides, 13^th February, very close to the Lupercalia but not on the same day. Faunus, as the god of the Lupercalia, goes back at least as far as the historian C. Acilius in the mid-second century BCE.

In art, as the god of the countryside, is often depicted as frolicking with goats and other rural animals. His children are known as the Fauni, who were half-men, half-goats. They were amusing but unpredictable creatures who were said to plague mortal men with nightmares as they slept. They can be seen as the Roman equivalent to the Greek satyrs, but since they were Roman, they were seen as guardians of sacred woodland areas rather than Greek drunken creatures.

The second character with the name Faunus was a king of Italy who was either the son of Hermes or the god Faunus. Sources say that he killed strangers and sacrificed them to his father, Hermes, but was killed by Hercules during his 10^th Labour.

Faunus had a son named Latinus (although some accounts say that it was Hercules who fathered him) whom he visited after his death. He warned Latinus not to allow his daughter Lavinia to marry anyone but a stranger from overseas. This turned out to be Aeneas, who arrived after fleeing from Troy.

Faunus, in today’s society, has become an obscure figure compared to that of the other deities from the Classical world. Yet he was a huge figure in the rural areas of Italy and throughout the Empire and offers us great insight into the Roman religious and spiritual beliefs.

Bibliography:

Wiseman, T. P. (1995) The God of the Lupercal, The Journal of Roman Studies, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.