634 THE NATURE OF ROMAN MYTHOLOGY
painting with this title, now in Dresden. In this work Poussin has gathered six
of the young men and women who were changed into flowers and were cele-
brated as the subjects of Ovid's stories.
Even with divinities for whom there was no Greek equivalent, Ovid created
stories in the Greek manner that gave them character and substance. Pomona,
goddess of fruit that can be picked from trees, was linked by Ovid with an
Etruscan deity, Vertumnus, whose name appears to be connected with the Latin
word vortere, which means "to turn" or "to change." An old statue of Vertum-
nus stood not far from the Forum in Rome, the subject of a poem by Propertius,
who was a contemporary of Ovid.
In Ovid's story, Pomona had a garden from which she excluded her lovers,
among them Vertumnus, who could change himself into different shapes. Dis-
guised as an old woman, he approached Pomona and advised her to marry Ver-
tumnus. This he did so successfully (his advice included the cautionary tale of
Iphis and Anaxarete, narrated earlier, p. 617) that he resumed his natural ap-
pearance as a young man and won Pomona's love. The legend of Pomona and
Vertumnus has been one of the most popular of Ovid's stories and has been the
subject of innumerable paintings and musical works (see Color Plate 15).
The deities who presided over the livestock of the farm were called Pales.
Originally a pair, their name was later used for one deity, either male or female.
The festival of Pales, the Parilia (or Palilia), was celebrated in April and was also
considered to be the anniversary of the founding of Rome.FOREST DIVINITIES: SILVANUS AND FAUNUS
Silvanus (Forester) and Faunus (Favorer) were gods of the woods and forests.
Silvanus had to be propitiated when a forest was being cleared or trees felled.
In the Aeneid, Faunus is the son of Picus and grandson of Saturn, and the father
of Latinus by an Italian birth-goddess, Marica. Originally he was a woodland
spirit, occasionally mischievous but generally favorable to the farmer who wor-
shiped him. His consort (or daughter) was Fauna, who was identified with the
Bona Dea (Good Goddess), a divinity worshiped only by women. Both Faunus
and Silvanus were identified with the Arcadian pastoral god Pan. Faunus and
Fauna were further identified with minor gods of woodland sounds because
they were considered responsible for strange and sudden forest noises. Thus (ac-
cording to Livy) the night after a closely fought battle against the Etruscans, the
Romans heard Silvanus (whom Livy here confuses with Faunus) cry out from a
nearby forest that they had won the victory, with the result that the Etruscans
acknowledged defeat and returned home. Faunus also had oracular powers; Lat-
inus consulted him about the prodigies that accompanied the arrival of Aeneas
in Italy, and Numa received advice from him in a time of famine.
Faunus was officially worshiped at Rome and had a temple on the Tiber is-
land. His festival was in December, but he was closely connected with the more