{"database": "deitydb", "table": "entities", "rows": [["ENT_ITA_PICUS", "Picus", null, "Italic/Sabine", "deity / prophetic woodpecker deity", "deity", "prophecy; augury; woodpecker; first king of Latium; wildlands; di indigetes; transformation", null, null, null, "A", null, null, null, null, null, "Picus (\"Woodpecker\") is an ancient Italic deity who gives his name to the woodpecker (Lat. picus, Picus Martius \u2014 the woodpecker sacred to Mars), the most important augural bird in Roman religion. Picus occupies a unique position in the genealogy of the Latin kings: Virgil (Aeneid 7.48) makes him the father of Faunus and grandfather of Latinus (\"Fauno Picus pater\"), thus placing him at the root of the Latin royal genealogical tree. Ovid (Metamorphoses 14.320-434; Fasti 3.37-54) preserves the fullest narrative of Picus: he was a beautiful youth, beloved of Pomona, who rejected Circe's advances, whereupon Circe transformed him into a woodpecker \u2014 his prophetic gifts survived the transformation, embodied in the woodpecker's role as augural bird. As the Picus Martius (woodpecker of Mars), Picus mediates between the divine world and human augural knowledge: the woodpecker's tapping was interpreted as divine communication, and the bird was protected by the augural laws. The woodpecker also plays a role in the founding myth of Rome: a wolf and a woodpecker together suckled and fed Romulus and Remus in the Lupercal cave (Ovid Fasti 3.54), making Picus (through his bird form) a co-nurturing deity of Rome's origins. As such, Picus is both a pre-Roman Italic figure (one of the di indigetes of Latium) and a deity deeply embedded in the augural religion of the Republic. Wissowa (1912) pp. 212-213.", "deity"]], "columns": ["entity_id", "canonical_name", "greek_name", "tradition", "entity_type", "category", "primary_domains", "tags", "cult_scope", "primary_period", "evidence_confidence", "review_status", "inclusion_basis", "earth_association_score", "chthonic_flag", "serpent_flag", "short_note", "entity_class"], "primary_keys": ["entity_id"], "primary_key_values": ["ENT_ITA_PICUS"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.519121000659652, "source": "jebboone/deitydb", "source_url": "https://github.com/jebboone/deitydb", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"}