Faunus- Roman GodDeity"God of the Wild"

The Kings of the Wild

In the Aeneid, Faunus was the son of Picus and grandson of Saturn, third in a line of divine kings who ruled Latium since the golden age. Picus had been a young king who spurned the sorceress Circe, and she turned him into a woodpecker. Faunus inherited his father's throne and fathered Latinus, the king who would welcome Aeneas when the Trojans reached Italy.

Horace addressed Faunus directly in Odes 3.18, asking the god to cross his fields gently and spare the newborn kids. He promised a young goat and cups of wine on his old altar.

The Oracle at Albunea

When a swarm of bees settled on the sacred laurel tree and fire burned in his daughter Lavinia's hair without consuming her, King Latinus went to consult his father's oracle. He traveled to the grove at Albunea, where sulfurous springs bubbled from the earth. There he sacrificed, spread the fleeces of slaughtered sheep on the ground, and lay down to sleep.

In the dark, Faunus spoke. He told Latinus not to marry Lavinia to any Latin prince but to wait for a foreigner who would come across the sea. Their mingled blood would raise his people's name to the stars.

Faunus and Fauna

Faunus's female counterpart was Fauna, whom the Romans also worshipped as Bona Dea. Traditions recorded by Macrobius disagreed about her identity: she was called Faunus's wife, his daughter, or his sister. In one version, Faunus discovered Fauna drinking wine in secret and beat her with myrtle branches. In another, he took the form of a serpent to lie with her. Myrtle was forbidden from Bona Dea's rites ever after, and men were excluded from her worship entirely.

In 62 BCE, Publius Clodius disguised himself as a woman and entered the rites of Bona Dea held at Caesar's house. Cicero prosecuted him for the sacrilege.

The Lupercalia

On February 15, priests called Luperci gathered at the Lupercal, the cave on the Palatine Hill where the she-wolf had nursed Romulus and Remus. Goats and a dog were sacrificed. Two young men were smeared with the sacrificial blood on their foreheads, then the blood was wiped away with wool soaked in milk. They were required to laugh.

After a feast, the Luperci cut the goatskins into strips and ran nearly naked around the Palatine, striking anyone they met. Women placed themselves in their path. They believed the touch would cure barrenness or ease childbirth. At the Lupercalia of 44 BCE, Mark Antony offered Julius Caesar a royal diadem. Caesar refused it three times.

The ritual outlived the Roman gods. Pope Gelasius I abolished it in 494 CE, after the senator Andromachus defended the festival's continuation on grounds of ancient tradition.