entities: ENT_ITA_FAUNUS

The core table — every entity in the database, spanning gods, angels, demons, aeons, prophets, saints, heroes, spirits, monsters, personified abstractions, cosmological realms, and ritual categories. Use category to filter by functional type (146 values: Underworld Deity, Hero, Adversarial Being, Revealer Figure, etc.). Use tradition to filter by tradition. The short_note column contains a scholarly description with source citations.

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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
ENT_ITA_FAUNUS Faunus   Italic/Sabine deity / prophetic wild nature god deity wildlands; shepherds; prophecy; fertility; Lupercalia; omen; fright; di indigetes       A           Faunus is one of the oldest attested Italic deities, a god of the wildlands and prophetic voice, patron of shepherds and country folk. His name is etymologically connected to the Latin faveo ("to favor") or, more likely, a root meaning "wolf" (compare fauces, "jaws/throat"), reflecting his liminal, dangerous character as lord of the uncultivated spaces beyond the human settlement. Faunus prophesies through rustling leaves, animal sounds, and voices in the forest (the "faunalia" — wild prophetic voices). Ovid (Fasti 2.267-380) describes Faunus's role in the Lupercalia: the February festival of purification and fertility centered on the Lupercal cave on the Palatine, where young men (Luperci) ran the pomerium striking women with strips of goatskin (februa) to promote fertility. Virgil (Aeneid 7.81-101) makes Faunus the prophetic oracle of Latinus: Latinus's father Faunus (here elevated to king of Latium) speaks through the oracle of the sacred grove at Albunea, warning that Latinus must marry a foreign husband (Aeneas). This version grants Faunus royal and prophetic status beyond the shepherd deity of the archaic stratum. Faunus was explicitly identified with the Greek Pan by Roman writers (Cicero ND 2.6; Ovid Fasti 2.270), making him the Italic equivalent of the Arcadian goat-deity. Under the Fabius family's patronage, the Luperci Fabiani maintained the cult into the imperial period. Wissowa, G. (1912), Religion und Kultus der Römer, pp. 209-213; Radke, G. (1965), Die Götter Altitaliens, pp. 110-116. deity

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