Faunus

[Latin.]

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Faunus, in Roman myth, son of Pīcus, grandson of Saturn, and father of Latīnus, king of the Latini when Aeneas arrived in Italy. He was an Italian pastoral god, connected with the Lupercalia, a hunter and promoter of agriculture, whose festival on 5 December was celebrated by cheerful celebrations in the countryside. He was also an oracular god (hence his title Fātŭus, ‘the speaker’) who revealed the future by dreams or supernatural voices in sacred groves, of which there was one near Tibur and another on the Aventine. The spectral appearances and terrifying sounds he was believed to make in wooded places caused him to be visualized as a monster with the legs and horns of a goat. Hence he was identified with the Arcadian god Pan and, as in the case of the latter, the idea grew up of a plurality of Fauni (fauns), who were identified with the Greek satyrs but usually thought of as more gentle.