Biography Faune

Faun (Faunus) – belonged to the oldest national deities of Italy, although many purely Italian features of his character and cult smoothed out, due to unidentified him with the Greek Pan. F. – kind, gracious God (from favere – favor, hence the same place names Faustus, Faustulus, Favonius). In the image of F. ancient Italians worshiped good demon of the mountains, meadows, fields, caves, flocks, bestow fertility of fields, animals and people, prophetic god of the ancient king of Latium and the ancestor of many ancient names, planter of the original culture, while, along with one personal deity, believed in the existence of many similar and the same name with the demons, which were embodied the attributes of the FA, like Silvana, FA, as a forest god lives in the thickets, secluded caves or near noisy sources, where he predicts the future, catches birds and pursuing nymphs. With the man he allegedly, or in a dream, or from afar, frightening, and admonishing his forest voices, he also inspires the so-called panic as a traveler, so sometimes during the war and the enemy. He wanders in the forests of invisible spirit: in connection with the dog, which is attributed to the ability to see ghosts, was dedicated to F. Being a man in a dream, FA is often tormented by his nightmare: against the use separate roots and ointments, especially indigenous forest peony. Particularly treasured fauns women who pursued his love of God, hence his epithet Incubus. The special protection enjoyed F. herd: it contributed to their breeding and protecting them from the wolves. In that sense, it was called Lupercus, – name, associated with the name and manage at Rome in honor of F. holiday and Lupercalia. In Lupercalia, in honor of AF were installed two holidays: spring Favnalii (Faunalia), were from 13 February and the winter favnalii, to cope on December 5. In the villages, in honor of AF occurred a month of sacrifice. How prophetic god, F. gave their predictions in a dream: in this sense it is called Fatuus or fatuelus. Oracles FA were confined to the groves. Judging from the description, which gives Ovid (Metamorph, IV, 644 et seq.) Numa, wishing to get oracle F. and pre-purified themselves by abstaining, goes into the woods and there kills two sheep – one FA, another god of sleep. Then, double-sprinkled his head with water from the source, the two clasped wreath of leaves of the beech and prayed, he lay stretched on skins of sacrificial animals and night in his sleep gets welcome revelation. Similar information, reports and Virgil in book VII. Aeneid (79 – 95). As God predictions, Faun was considered the ancestor of the song, hence the size of most ancient Roman poem called Saturn or Favnovym. In Latsii F. revered as the king of Aborigines, the grandson of Saturn, the son of Pica, the father of Latina (from nymphs Marika), a wise and just ruler, his rule was preceded by the tsarist period, and was the first era of cultural dissemination in the country. In this legend influenced the recollection of those times when Italy was full of forests and the primitive tribes it was inhabited by forest clearing. On the antiquity of the cult F. indicated by the fact that in some places of the cult were not as many churches, how many fields, caves, forests, and F. venerated in the image are not idols, and totems of plant and animal kingdoms. Anthropomorphic images belong to the later AF time and borrowed from the Greeks: FA appears either in the form of Pan, or in the form of Silenus and Marsyas, fawn same – in the form of Panisco. In luperkalskogo sanctuary in Rome there were two temples F.: one on the Aventine, another on the island of Tibrskom. Faune, a daughter (or wife) F., is a female hypostasis called God. Like him, she was the goddess of things and called the veil, at the same time, she belonged to the goddess of female productive start, and as such, identified with the Maya or the Goddess of Good (Bona dea). Wed Motty, "Do Fauno et Fauna sive Bona dea enisqne mysteriis" (BA, 1840); Preller, "Romissche Mythologie" (1 ton, B., 1881, p. 379 – 392).