(in Latin Faunus), the name given in the Roman mythology to a class of deities or genii supposed to inhabit the forests and groves, and who were particularly reverenced by husbandmen. The fauni correspond to the Greek panes, and are confounded by the Roman poets with the satyrs, which chiefly differed from the panes and fauni by the want of horns. The fauns are usually represented as of human form, but with the tail of a goat, pointed ears, short horns, and a flat turned-up nose; sometimes with the feet of a goat; and generally clothed in the shaggy skin of some beast. They delighted more particularly in vineyards; and are frequently described as wearing crowns of ivy or of vine-leaves, because, like the satyrs, they belonged to the train of Bacchus. The poets describe them as of a half-brutal nature, and devoted to pleasure and sensuality—a character strongly impressed on most of the ancient statues of fauns that have come down to us. Among the most celebrated of these are—the old faun dancing, in the Florentine museum—the young faun playing on a flute—and the sleeping faun, now in the gallery at Munich. These rural deities were regarded as the descendants of Faunus, one of the early kings of Latium, who in later times

1 Euseb., lib. v., chap. 20.