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Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

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study, for not enough evidence survives to support even these three basic ideas for each god or<br />

goddess. The use of animal iconography in the representation of a deity is not enough to label an<br />

animal a totem for a particular people or tribe; in the context of ancient Italy, the iconographic<br />

choice to represent a deity in full or hybrid animal form does not appear to be based on ethnicity.<br />

This forms the sum total of information concerning the appearance of Picus in worship<br />

and cult; our knowledge of this god is scanty at best. 576 He also does not often appear in mythic<br />

narrative beyond his initial metamorphosis from man to bird. We have already mentioned this<br />

god in connection to an episode in Ovid’s Fasti in which Numa captures Picus and Faunus in an<br />

attempt to learn how to expiate a thunderbolt. 577 In addition to a lack of mythic narrative, visual<br />

representations of this god are also quite rare. 578 One possible representation of Picus takes the<br />

form of a small, black gloss amphora (Fig. VI.3). 579 This vessel in the shape of a bird most<br />

closely resembles the green woodpecker (Picus viridis) due to its small, conical beak and<br />

protruding eyes, but also exhibits some human features. 580 Ears jut from the sides of the bird’s<br />

head, arms reach out from beneath the bird’s wings to wrap around the belly of the vessel, and<br />

legs are bent between the bottom of the wings and the base of the amphora. This piece may be<br />

intended to represent a stage of the metamorphosis of Picus from man into bird. If so, the artist<br />

has chosen a dramatic moment in the adventures of this man turned god.<br />

Picus is not the only theriomorphic or therianthropic bird divinity found in Etruscan and<br />

Roman myth, but he is the only one we can identify with any degree of certainty. Furthermore,<br />

bird-man hybrids are so poorly understood that it is not always clear from which species of bird<br />

the hybrids are formed. Three other examples of bird-man hybrids appear in Etruscan and<br />

Roman art, and the context in which these figures are found varies. Another problem that<br />

plagues our understanding of the following bird-men is that surviving examples of these hybrids<br />

are quite limited and thus there is little material on which to base conclusions.<br />

576<br />

Rosivach 1980, 145. Halliday (1922, 111) also notes that Picus belongs more to the realm of myth and folklore<br />

than cult.<br />

577<br />

Ov. Fast. 3.291-326.<br />

578<br />

There is no LIMC entry for the god Picus.<br />

579<br />

Capanna (2000,225) this piece, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from a private collection in<br />

Lugnano, may be meant to represent the climax in the story of Picus, the moment of his transformation from man to<br />

woodpecker. Given the unknown provenance of this piece, and its presence in a private collection, it is difficult to<br />

determine whether it is of Roman or Etruscan make. The Etruscans seem to have been interested in Circe’s<br />

handiwork, and scenes depicting the transformation of Odysseus’ men into animals appear on Etruscan cinerary urns<br />

as well as other objects. If we are able to identify this figure as the transformed Roman king Picus, then this is the<br />

only visual representation of the narrative of Picus of which I am aware.<br />

580<br />

Capanna 2000, 225.<br />

117

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