Silvanus (Latin: "of the woods") was a Roman tutelary spirit or deity of woods and fields. As protector of forests (sylvestris deus), he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild.[1][2][3][4] He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields.[5] He was apparently inherited from the Etruscan deity Selvans.
Silvanus is described as the divinity protecting the flocks of cattle, warding off wolves, and promoting their fertility.[1][6][7][8] Hyginus states that Silvanus was the first to set up stones to mark the limits of fields, and that every estate had three Silvani:[9]
- a Silvanus domesticus (in inscriptions called Silvanus Larum and Silvanus sanctus sacer Larum)
- a Silvanus agrestis (also called salutaris), who was worshipped by shepherds, and
- a Silvanus orientalis, that is, the god presiding over the point at which an estate begins.
Hence Silvani were often referred to in the plural.
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Attributes and associations
Like other gods of woods and flocks, Silvanus is described as fond of music; the syrinx was sacred to him,[1] and he is mentioned along with the Pans and Nymphs.[2][10] Later speculators even identified Silvanus with Pan, Faunus, Inuus and Aegipan.[11] He must have been associated with the Italian Mars, for Cato refers to him as Mars Silvanus.[7] In the provinces outside of Italy, Silvanus was identified with numerous native gods:[12]
- Sucellos, Sinquas and Tettus in Gaul and Germany
- Callirius, Cocidius and Vinotonus in Britain
- Calaedicus in Spain
- the Mogiae in Pannonia
- Poininus in Moesia.
The Slavic god Borevit has similarities with Silvanus.[citation needed]
Worship
The sacrifices offered to Silvanus consisted of grapes, ears of grain, milk, meat, wine and pigs.[1][5][13][14][15] In Cato's De Agricultura an offering to Mars Silvanus is described, to ensure the health of cattle; it is stated there that his connection with agriculture referred only to the labour performed by men, and that females were excluded from his worship.[7][14] (Compare Bona Dea for a Roman deity from whose worship men were excluded.) Virgil relates that in the very earliest times the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians had dedicated a grove and a festival to Silvanus.[6]
In literature
In works of Latin poetry and art, Silvanus always appears as an old man, but as cheerful and in love with Pomona.[5][16][17][18] Virgil represents him as carrying the trunk of a cypress (Greek: δενδροφόρος),[10] about which the following myth is told. Silvanus – or Apollo according to other versions[19][20] – was in love with the youth Cyparissus, and once by accident killed a hind belonging to Cyparissus. The latter died of grief, and was metamorphosed into a cypress.[21][22][23]
References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).
- ^ a b c d Tibullus II.5.27, 30.
- ^ a b Lucan. Pharsalia III.402.
- ^ Pliny the Elder. Naturalis historia XII.2.
- ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses I.193.
- ^ a b c Horace. Epodes II.21-22.
- ^ a b Virgil. Aeneid VIII.600-1.
- ^ a b c Cato the Elder. De Re Rustica 83
- ^ Nonnus II.324.
- ^ Hyginus. De limitibus constituendi, preface.
- ^ a b Virgil. Georgics I.20-1.
- ^ Plutarch. Parallel Lives. Min. 22.
- ^ Peter F. Dorcey (1992). The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion, p.32. ISBN 9789004096011.
- ^ Horace. Epistles II.1.143.
- ^ a b Juvenal. VI.446, with associated scholia.
- ^ Compare Voss. Mythol. Briefe, 2.68; Hartung, Die Relig. der Röm. vol. 2. p. 170, &c.
- ^ Virgil. Georgics II.494
- ^ Horace. Carmina III.8.
- ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses XIV.639.
- ^ Servius. Commentary on the Aeneid III.680.
- ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses X.106
- ^ Servius. Commentary on Virgil's Georgics I.20
- ^ Virgil. Eclogues X.26.
- ^ Virgil. Aeneid III.680.
External links
- Cato's De Agricultura: an offering to Mars Silvanus (e-text in English and Latin)
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