Editing Inuus (section)

==Lupercalia==
[[Livy]] is the sole source for identifying Inuus as the form of Faunus for whom the [[Lupercalia]] was celebrated: "naked young men would run around venerating [[Mount Lyceum|Lycaean]] Pan, whom the Romans then called Inuus, with [[Trickster|antics]] and lewd behavior."<ref>[[Livy]] 1.5.2: ''nudi iuvenes Lycaeum Pana venerantes per lusum atque lasciuiam currerent, quem Romani deinde vocarunt Inuum.''</ref> Although [[Ovid]] does not name Inuus in his treatment of the Lupercalia, he may allude to his sexual action in explaining the mythological background of the festival. When [[Romulus]] complains that a low fertility rate has rendered the [[The Rape of the Sabine Women|abduction of the Sabine women]] pointless, [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], in her guise as the birth goddess [[Lucina (goddess)|Lucina]], offers an instruction: "Let the sacred goat go into the Italian matrons" (''Italidas matres … sacer hirtus inito'', with the verb ''inito'' a form of ''inire'').<ref>[[T.P. Wiseman]], ''Historiography and Imagination: Eight Essays on Roman Culture'' (University of Exeter Press, 1994), p. 138, note 104, takes Juno's instruction as clear reference to Inuus.</ref> The would-be mothers recoil from this advice, but an [[augur]], "recently arrived from [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]] soil," offers a ritual dodge: a goat was killed, and its hide cut into strips for flagellating women who wished to conceive; thus the [[Etiology#Mythology|aetiology]] for the practice at the Lupercalia.<ref>[[Ovid]], [[Fasti (Ovid)|Fasti]] 2.441ff.; Jane F. Gardner, ''Roman Myths'' (University of Texas Press, 1993), p. 77, noting that [[Juno Sospita]] wears a goatskin cloak.</ref> [[Rutilius Claudius Namatianus|Rutilius Namatianus]] offers a similar verbal play, ''Faunus init'' ("Faunus enters"), in pointing out a statue depicting the god at Castrum Inui ("Fort Inuus").<ref>[[Rutilius Claudius Namatianus|Rutilius]], ''De reditu suo'', line 232.</ref> [[Georg Wissowa]] rejected both the etymology and the identification of Inuus with Faunus.<ref>[[Georg Wissowa]], ''Religion und Kultus der Römer'', 2nd ed., p. 211, as cited by [[J.G. Frazer]], ''The Golden Bough'', vol. 2, ''Adonis Attis Osiris'' (London, 1919), p. 234, note 3.</ref>

The scant evidence for Inuus has not been a bar to elaborate scholarly conjecture, as [[William Warde Fowler]] noted  at the beginning of the 20th century in his classic work on [[Roman festivals]].<ref>[[William Warde Fowler]], ''The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic'' (London, 1908), p. 312, commenting with an atypical degree of disparagement that "Unger … has much to say about Inuus in the worst style of German pseudo-research"; G.F. Unger, "Die Lupercalen," ''Rheinische Museum'' 36 (1881) 50–86.</ref> "It is quite plain," Fowler observed, "that the Roman of the literary age did not know who the god (of the Lupercalia) was."<ref>Fowler, ''Festivals'', pp. 312–313.</ref>