Silvanus (mythology)

Silvanus
Tutelary god of woods and uncultivated lands, protector of field boundaries and cattle, protector against wolves
Bronze statue of Silvanus, said to be from Nocera in southern Italy.
AbodeThe forest
SymbolsPan flute, cypress
Gendermale
Equivalents
EtruscanSelvans?
GreekSilenus
Altar decorated with a bas-relief depicting the god Sylvanus Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Silvanus (/sɪlˈveɪnəs/;[1] meaning "of the woods" in Latin) was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and uncultivated lands. As protector of the forest (sylvestris deus), he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild.[2][3][4][5] He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields.[6] The similarly named Etruscan deity Selvans may be a borrowing of Silvanus,[7] or not even related in origin.[8]

Silvanus is described as the divinity protecting the flocks of cattle, warding off wolves, and promoting their fertility.[2][9][10][11] Dolabella, a rural engineer of whom only a few pages are known, states that Silvanus was the first to set up stones to mark the limits of fields, and that every estate had three Silvani:[12]

  • a Silvanus domesticus (in inscriptions called Silvanus Larum and Silvanus sanctus sacer Larum)
  • a Silvanus agrestis (also called salutaris, literally "of the fields" or "saviour"), who was worshipped by shepherds, and
  • a Silvanus orientalis, literally "of the east", that is, the god presiding over the point at which an estate begins.

Hence Silvani were often referred to in the plural.

  1. ^ "Silvanus or Sylvanus". Collins Dictionary. n.d. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
  2. ^ a b Tibullus II.5.27, 30.
  3. ^ Lucan. Pharsalia III.402.
  4. ^ Pliny the Elder. Naturalis historia XII.2.
  5. ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses I.193.
  6. ^ Horace. Epodes II.21-22.
  7. ^ Robert Schilling, "Silvanus," in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1992, from the French edition of 1981), p. 146 online, concurring with Dumézil, Archaic Roman Religion, p. 616.
  8. ^ Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), pp. 10–12 online, noting earlier efforts to press an Etruscan etymology on Silvanus.
  9. ^ Virgil. Aeneid VIII.600-1.
  10. ^ Cato the Elder. De Agricultura 83
  11. ^ Nonnus II.324.
  12. ^ Dolabella. ex libris Dolabellae, in "Die Schriften der rômischen Feldmesser", edited by Karl Lachmann, Georg Reimer ed., Berlin, 1848, p302