{"database": "deitydb", "table": "entity_relationships", "rows": [[2462, "ENT_ITA_PICUS", "aligned_with", "ENT_ROM_MARS", "medium", "The Picus Martius (woodpecker of Mars) is the specifically sacred bird of Mars in Roman augury. Ovid (Fasti 3.37-54) makes this connection explicit: the woodpecker is Mars's sacred bird because of its pecking/hammering action (associated with the war god's energy) and because the woodpecker Picus shares Mars's prophetic augural role. Pliny (NH 10.20) notes that Roman augury treated the woodpecker's behavior as directly communicating divine will. The identification of Picus the deity with Picus the bird of Mars suggests that the deity Picus may originally have been the personification or hypostasis of Mars's augural bird \u2014 i.e., Picus is the divine patron of the woodpecker's augural speech. Confidence medium: the connection is functional/cultic rather than a narrative identification.", "SRC_OVID_FASTI", "reviewed", "PER_ITA_ARCHAIC"]], "columns": ["relationship_id", "subject_entity_id", "relationship_type", "object_entity_id", "confidence", "rationale", "source_id", "review_status", "period_id"], "primary_keys": ["relationship_id"], "primary_key_values": ["2462"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8191310002985119, "source": "jebboone/deitydb", "source_url": "https://github.com/jebboone/deitydb", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT"}