Faunus and Silvanus were not civic cult deities. Instead, they were gods of the countryside representing the Roman’s earliest relationships with the land. They were respected by country people who offered sacrifices and took precautions to ensure their goodwill when it was necessary to encroach upon their territory, whether to hunt, gather or claim land from the forest for farmland.

Faunus

Faunus was primarily a wild god of the forest. Any mysterious sounds that came from the trees were said to be made by him. Roman farmers were particularly careful to propitiate him if they cleared woodland to add fields to their farms.

Although Faunus’s name meant “kindly one” (taken from the root word favere, meaning “to look favourably upon”), he could be anything but. A lewd deity linked to fertility and reproduction, his surname of inuus meant “he who makes fruitful”, and in this role, he reputedly pursued women in their dreams.

If his woodland was claimed without the correct propitiation, Faunus could appear to peasants in the fields close to his woods and torment them. If the proper amends had been made, Faunus would leave the cleared land and remain in the forest.

Faunus was also an oracular deity. Anyone who slept in his woods under the trees could receive a prophetic dream courtesy of the god.

Faunus was never a deity of the city, although his festival of the Lupercalia was celebrated in Rome each 15th February. The festival marked spring and courted renewed fertility, and was a relic of the time when Rome was a farming community. In 193BC, a temple was built for him on Tiber Island, financed by a fine imposed on drovers. In later times, Faunus became associated with the Greek god Pan. However, other than that, the god had no serious urban cult.

Silvanus

Silvanus was the god of the countryside in general, overseeing not only forests but farmland, hunting and herding.

He was, by reputation, a gentler deity than Faunus. The sound of pan pipes marked his presence and he was believed to roam his woodland accompanied by nymphs called Silvanae.

His nature was not as wild and unpredictable as Faunus. Although he had no prophetic powers, he also had no reputation for preying on women in their sleep. He was also happy for farmers to acquire his woodland for their farms and was believed to remain a benign presence. Farmers would offer him the first fruits of their harvest in gratitude.

Unlike Faunus, Silvanus had no cult temple in Rome. However, he did become a popular deity in the western German provinces from the Augustan period. Here, according to inscriptional evidence — whether as a purely Roman deity or in conjunction with local gods — he was greatly respected. As with Faunus, Silvanus’s worshippers were not members of the elite but ordinary people.

Resources

Price, Simon and Kearns, Emily (Eds) 2003. The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Cicero, (trans. Horace CP McGregor) The Nature of the Gods. Penguin Books.

Dumezil, Georges (trans Philip Krapp) 1996. Archaic Roman Religion Vol I. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London.