Picus Martius
Umbrian · deity · Iguvine Umbrian religion; 3rd 1st c. BCE · Recorded classification
Picus Martius enters the Iguvine Tablets as a landowner: the Clavernii owe the Atiedian Brethren spelt from the Ager Tlatius and the Ager Casilus, fields held in his name. That is the whole of his Umbrian dossier, and the record is kept to it. His name is the woodpecker's, a bird of augury in Italic practice, and the epithet ties him to Mars — but the well-known Latin story of Picus, king of Latium and father of Faunus, transformed by Circe, belongs to a different body of tradition and is deliberately not carried over. A god who is attested only as the owner of two grain fields is recorded as exactly that.
Variant accounts
- The Latin legend of Picus is not imported into this record.Latin tradition makes Picus a king of Latium, son of Saturn and father of Faunus, turned into a woodpecker by Circe. None of that is attested for the Umbrian Picus Martius, who appears in the tablets only as the holder of two estates. The census disposition for this candidate is explicit that no royal genealogy or transformation is to be imported from the Latin figure, and none is: the record carries no parents, no children and no transformation.Lane 1 Umbrian census, disposition for Picus Martius: 'The tablets name estates of this figure. No invented royal genealogy or transformation is imported from Latin Picus.' See data-sources/audits/lane-1/umbrian-census.tsv. (secondary)
Domains
- agriculture
- augury
Powers
- to hold the estates whose spelt supplies the sacrifices of the Atiedian Brethren
Epithets
- Martier (Martius)Iguvine Tablets, Tabula Vb 8-18 (piquier martier, genitive). (primary)
Sources
- Picus Martius (Umbrian piquier martier) is named in Tabula V of the Iguvine Tablets as the holder of the Ager Tlatius and the Ager Casilus, estates from which the Clavernii owed spelt to the Atiedian Brethren.: Iguvine Tablets, Tabula Vb 8-18. (primary); Reference summary of Tabula Vb on the Clavernii, the spelt render and the two named fields of Picus Martius. (secondary); J. W. Poultney, The Bronze Tables of Iguvium (American Philological Association, 1959) — the English translation from which these tablet references were recorded; see data-sources/audits/lane-1/umbrian-census.tsv. (secondary)