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Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

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Faunus and Silvanus are also associated with the goat (Chapter Four) beginning with<br />

their syncretic connections to the Greek goat god Pan. In this chapter, the relationship between<br />

Faunus, Silvanus, and Pan is further problematized since images of Faunus and Silvanus do not<br />

often take the form of a goat-man hybrid in art even though Faunus is portrayed as such in<br />

literature. Goat iconography continues with the goddess Juno, who was worshipped as Juno<br />

Sospita or Juno Caprotina. In the past, this aspect of Juno was separated from the womanly<br />

spheres of marriage and childbirth even though she was associated with an oracular shrine<br />

inhabited by a snake that tested the chastity of young maidens. I would argue that being a civic<br />

goddess and the protectress of a city does not rule out the possibility of being associated with<br />

marriage, childbirth, and fertility.<br />

The bull (Chapter Five), an exceedingly significant animal in ancient religion, is<br />

represented by the god Achelous. Achelous is a typical river god and therefore a shape changer.<br />

He is often depicted as having a fish’s tail and a bull’s horns, but this is not the only hybrid form<br />

he takes. He can also appear as a bull with a man’s head, and the man-bull present in the Tomb<br />

of the Bulls in Tarquinia may well represent Achelous or another river god like him. Numerous<br />

akroteria from Etruscan temples are also decorated with images of a man’s head that sprouts<br />

bull’s horns. The identification of these figures as Achelous is called into question by the Greek<br />

Dionysos’ association with bulls. Dionysos was much more than a god of wine and theater and<br />

was the god of coursing liquids and the raw, pulsing life present in the blood of men and animals.<br />

He is often referred to as the horned god in literature but, like Aesculapius, it is difficult to find<br />

secure theriomorphic or therianthropic representations of this god in art. It is also not clear if<br />

there was ever a “standard” iconographic type for Dionysos Tauromorphos; was he a bull-man or<br />

a man-bull? This problem is particularly evident in an Italian context in which Dionysos is often<br />

linked to the Etruscan god Fufluns and the Latin god Liber, who may or may not share in the<br />

taurine associations of their Greek counterpart. In the discussion of the uncertainty of<br />

identifying certain images of man-bull hybrids, the myth of the Minotaur and its use in Etruria is<br />

also discussed.<br />

The final chapter dedicated to an animal type focuses on birds (Chapter Six). Birds were<br />

an important part of both Etruscan and Roman religion as can be seen from the prominence of<br />

the practice of augury in these cultures. This chapter focuses on a number of problematic deities<br />

about whom we possess little secure information. The first of these is the god Picus, a figure<br />

26

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