Silvanus
Publié le 22/02/2012
Extrait du document
Roman An ancient god of northern
Italy and then of the Romans. Silvanus was, in his
earliest form, a god of uncultivated lands, of forests
and woods, fields and flocks. People believed that he
either lived among the mysterious forces of these
places or was himself one of those mysterious forces.
Later, people came to worship Silvanus as a god of
agriculture, a rural god. Artists portrayed him as a
peasant or a man of the country.
Silvanus was often worshiped with Faunus,
another Roman god of rural life, who was seen as a
protector of farmers and shepherds. As the Romans
adopted many of the stories of the gods of classical
Greece (see Hellenization), the characteristics of
Silvanaus and Faunus merged with those of Pan, the
god of fields and forests whom artists portrayed as
half man, half goat.