Silvanus
Roman · deity · regal · deity
Silvanus is what is on the other side of the fence. He belongs to woodland and to the uncleared margins, and Roman writers give him three aspects: of the house, of the field, and of the boundary between the farm and the wild. What is striking about him is the shape of his cult — he has no state temple and no day in the calendar, yet he is one of the most frequently named gods in Latin inscriptions, because farmers, herdsmen and freedmen put up altars to him by the hundred. He is a god the Roman state never adopted and the Roman countryside never stopped paying.
Domains
- forest
- boundary
Sources
- Reference treatment of Silvanus, his spheres and his overwhelmingly private cult.