The Faun is a rustic forest god or goddess (genii) of Roman mythology often associated with enchanted woods and the Greek god Pan and his satyrs. They are more commonly known creature because of books like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Percy Jackon and the Lightning Theif. A Faun has the upper body of a human - arms, torso and head - with the legs of a goat.
Satyrs often have tufts of furr on their faces, including the females, and have horns coming out from the tops of their heads, though usually not until mid-puberty. They are a manifestation of forest and animal spirits that would help or hinder humans at whim. In Greek mythology, a satyr is one of a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus with goat-like (caprine) features, including a goat-tail, goat-like ears, and sometimes a goat-like phallus (or penis for those who are sensitive). In Roman Mythology there is a similar concept with goat-like features, the faun being half-man, half-goat. Greek-speaking Romans often use the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, and eventually syncretize the two. The female 'Satyresses' were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing.
Romans believed fauns inspired fear in men traveling in lonely, remote or wild places. They were also capable of guiding humans in need, as in the fable of The Satyr and the Traveller, in the title of which Latin authors substituted the word Faunus. Fauns and satyrs were originally quite different creatures: whereas fauns are half-man and half-goat, satyrs originally were depicted as stocky, hairy, ugly dwarfs or woodwoses with the ears and tails of horses or asses. Satyrs also were more woman-loving than fauns, and fauns were rather foolish where satyrs had more knowledge.
Ancient Roman mythological belief also included a god named Faunus and a goddess named Fauna who were goat people.
The satyrs' chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated (like Hermes and Priapus) with fertility. These characters can be found in the only complete remaining satyr play, Cyclops, by Euripides, and the fragments of Sophocles' Ichneutae (Tracking Satyrs). The satyr play was a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus. There is not enough evidence to determine whether the satyr play regularly drew on the same myths as those dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have been especially loved for his satyr plays, but none of them have survived.
Attic painted vases depict mature satyrs as being strongly built with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair, and full beards, with wreaths of vine or ivy circling their balding heads. Satyrs often carry the thyrsus: the rod of Dionysus tipped with a pine cone.
The Barberini Faun (located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany) is a Hellenistic marble statue from about 200 BCE, found in the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian (the Castel Sant'Angelo) and installed at Palazzo Barberini by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII). Gian Lorenzo Bernini restored and refinished the statue.
The House of the Faun in Pompei, dating from the 2nd century BCE, was so named because of the dancing faun statue that was the centerpiece of the large garden. The original now resides in the National Museum in Naples and a copy stands in its place
Satyrs acquired their goat-like aspect through later Roman conflation with Faunus, a carefree Italic nature spirit of similar characteristics and identified with the Greek god Pan (as depicted in Pan's Labyrinth). Hence satyrs are most commonly described in Latin literature as having the upper half of a man and the lower half of a goat, with a goat's tail in place of the Greek tradition of horse-tailed satyrs; therefore, satyrs became nearly identical with fauns. Mature satyrs are often depicted in Roman art with goat's horns, while juveniles are often shown with bony nubs on their foreheads.
