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the Pan Painter (Fig. IV.1). The fresco shows this god, known for his wild nature, in repose, and
is surely influenced by the social and political climate of the day. Perhaps this change in the
god’s demeanor is representative of a shift in the perception of Faunus from the wild forest god
to the potentially more docile or comic deity known to the Augustan poets. The discrepancies
between the iconography of Faunus in Fig. IV.2 and Pan in Fig. IV.3, as well as the image of
Faunus in literature, highlight both the fact that art and text need not mirror one another and also
the complex character of this god, who is not simply a Roman equivalent of the Greek Pan. One
last fact that helps to distinguish between Pan and Faunus is that before the Imperial Period,
there are few images of goat-man hybrids identified as Pan in Latium and Etruria, and all of
these are found in a Dionysiac context. 400 The earliest example provided by Boardman in the
LIMC entry for Pan is a bronze relief attachment dating to the fifth century BCE that depicts a
squatting goat therianthrope playing a syrinx. 401 One may wonder then, if so few images of
goat-man hybrids can securely be identified as Pan, a god whose nature is surely linked to the
goat, how we might identify a goat therianthrope as Faunus, whose nature is in question.
The multiplicity of Faunus bears mentioning as this is yet another factor that adds to the
problematic nature of the god. As we shall see by the end of this study, a number of the
theriomorphic and therianthropic deities can appear as pluralized or reduplicated creatures. In
relation to Faunus, scholars have sought to determine which came first, the singular or plural
forms. Fowler views Faunus as a deity who began as a “lower, multiple, daemonistic form” who
became something “more uniform and more rigid.” 402 Wissowa, on the other hand, proposes that
Faunus’ multiplicity was in fact the result of his identification with Pan, 403 which we have seen
to be problematic. There is no sure way to determine which, either the singular or plural, aspect
of Faunus came first or if this was even a concern to an ancient Etruscan or Roman. We may
speculate that Faunus may have originally been an individual deity before the late Republic when
authors such as Varro and Cicero refer to Fauni. 404
The use of a goat skin as a conspicuous component of a deity’s iconography was not
limited to rustic, forest gods such as Pan and possibly Faunus. The great goddess Juno could
400 Boardman 1997, 939.
401 Boardman 1997, 939.
402 Fowler 1925, 260.
403 Wissowa 1454.
404 See Ch. 3 notes 310 and 316. It is also difficult to determine the impact the presence of Satyrs has had on the
iconography of Faunus and the Fauni. Satyrs are plentiful in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art but are not always
depicted as goat-man hybrids and sometimes have horses’ tails as a component of their iconography.
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