Cum tibi Nonae redeunt Decembres;
Festus in pratis vacat otioso
Cum bove pagus;
Inter audaces lupus errat agnos;
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes;
Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terram.
No picture could be choicer or neater than this; for once it is a treat to have our best evidence in the form of a perfect work of art. We are for a moment let into the heart and mind of ancient Italy, as they showed themselves on a winter holiday. There is an ancient altar—not a temple—to a supernatural being who is not yet fully god, who can play pranks like the ‘Brownies’ and do harm, but is capable of doing good if duly propitiated. On the Nones of December, possibly of other months too[[1119]], he is coaxed with tender kid, libations of wine, and incense[[1120]]; the little rural community of farmers (pagus), with their labourers, take part in the rite, and bring their cattle into the common pasture, plough-oxen and all. Then, after the sacrifice, they dance in triple measure, like the Salii in March.
Horace is of course describing a rite which was entirely rural, as the word pagus would indicate sufficiently, apart from other features. Unless he were the god of the Lupercalia, which is open to much doubt[[1121]], Faunus was not introduced into the city of Rome till 196 B.C., when the aediles very appropriately built him a temple in the Tiber-island with money taken as fines from defaulting pecuarii[[1122]], or holders of public land used for cattle-runs. We may assume that his settlement in the city was suggested by the pontifices, and that we have here a case of the transformation of a purely rustic cult into an urban one by priestly manipulation. It is not impossible that the idea that Faunus was the deity of the Lupercalia came in about the same time[[1123]]. Both priests and annalists got hold of him, and did their best to rob him of his true character as an intelligible and useful god of woodland and pasture. He became a Rex Aboriginum[[1124]], and the third on the list of mythical kings of Latium[[1125]]. He became identified with the Greek Pan. But, in spite of all their efforts, Faunus would not tamely accept his new position. We hear no more of the aedes in the island: the Roman vulgus do not seem to have recognized him at the Lupercalia, and his insertion in the legends had no political effect. The fact that not a single inscription from Rome or its vicinity records his name shows plainly that he never took the popular fancy as a deity with city functions: and the absence of inscriptions in the country districts also, in most singular contrast to the ubiquitous stone records of Silvanus-worship, seems to show that he remained always much as wild as he was before the age of inscriptions began, while the kindred deity was adopted into the organized life and culture of the Italian and provincial farmer[[1126]].
It may be as well, before leaving the subject of this singular being, to sum up under a very few heads what is really known about him. But so little is known about the cult of Faunus—and indeed it can hardly be said that any elaborate cult ever grew up around him—that it may be legitimate for once first to glance at the etymological explanations of his name which have been suggested by scholars.