Inuus

In ancient Roman religion, Inuus () was a god, or aspect of a god, who embodied sexual intercourse. The evidence for him as a distinct entity is scant. Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that Inuus is an epithet of Faunus (Greek Pan), named from his habit of intercourse with animals, based on the etymology of ''ineundum'', "a going in, penetration," from '' inire'', "to enter" in the sexual sense. Other names for the god were Fatuus and Fatuclus (with a short ''a'').

Walter Friedrich Otto disputed the traditional etymology and derived ''Inuus'' instead from ''in-avos'', "friendly, beneficial" (cf. ''aveo'', "to be eager for, desire"), for the god's fructifying power.

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 Lycaean Pan, whom the Romans then called Inuus, with antics and lewd behavior." 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 abduction of the Sabine women pointless, Juno, in her guise as the birth 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''). The would-be mothers recoil from this advice, but an augur, "recently arrived from 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 aetiology for the practice at the Lupercalia. Rutilius Namatianus offers a similar verbal play, ''Faunus init'' ("Faunus enters"), in pointing out a statue depicting the god at Castrum Inui ("Fort Inuus"). Georg Wissowa rejected both the etymology and the identification of Inuus with Faunus.

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. "It is quite plain," Fowler observed, "that the Roman of the literary age did not know who the god (of the Lupercalia) was."

Castrum Inui

Servius's note on Inuus is prompted by the mention of ''Castrum Inui'' at ''Aeneid'' 6.775:

Castrum Novum is most likely Giulianova on the coast of Etruria, but Servius seems to have erred in thinking that Castrum Inui, on the coast of Latium, was the same town.

Rutilius makes the same identification as Servius, but explains that there was a stone carving of Inuus over the gate of the town. This image, worn by time, showed horns on its "pastoral forehead", but the ancient name was no longer legible. Rutilius is noncommittal about its identity, "whether Pan exchanged Tyrrhenian woodlands for Maenala, or whether a resident Faunus enters ''(init)'' his paternal retreats," but proclaims that "as long as he revitalizes the seed of mortals with generous fertility, the god is imagined as more than usually predisposed to sex."

Other associations

The Christian apologist Arnobius, in his extended debunking of traditional Roman deities, connects Inuus and Pales as guardians over flocks and herds. The woodland god Silvanus over time became identified with Faunus, and the unknown author of the '' Origo gentis romanae'' notes that many sources said that Faunus was the same as Silvanus, the god Inuus, and even Pan. Isidore of Seville identifies the ''Inui'', plural, with Pan, incubi, and the Gallic Dusios.

Diomedes Grammaticus makes a surprising etymological association: he says that the son of the war goddess Bellona, Greek Enyo (Ἐνυώ), given in the genitive as Ἐνυοῦς (Enuous), is imagined by the poets as goat-foot Inuus, "because in the manner of a goat he surmounts the mountaintops and difficult passes of the hills."

Casuccini mirror

An Etruscan bronze mirror from Chiusi (''ca.'' 300 BCE), the so-called Casuccini mirror, may depict Inuus. The scene on the back is a type known from at least four other mirrors, as well as engraved Etruscan gems and Attic red-figure vases. It depicts the oracular head of Orpheus ( Etruscan ''Urphe'') prophesying to a group of figures. Names are inscribed around the edge of the mirror, but because the figures are not labeled individually, the correlation is not unambiguous; moreover, the lettering is of disputed legibility in some names. There is general agreement, however, given the comparative evidence, that the five central figures are ''Umaele'', who seems to act as a medium; ''Euturpa'' (the Muse Euterpe), ''Inue'' (Inuus), ''Eraz'', and ''Aliunea'' or ''Alpunea'' ( Palamedes in other scenarios). The lovers in the pediment at the top are ''Atunis'' (Adonis) and the unknown ''E…ial'' where '' Turan'' (Venus) would be expected. The figure with outstretched wings on the tang is a '' Lasa'', an Etruscan form of Lar who was a facilitator of love like the Erotes or Cupid.

The bearded Inuus appears in the center. Damage obscures his midsection and legs, but his left arm and chest are nude and muscled. On an otherwise very similar mirror, a spear-bearing youth replaces Inuus in the composition. No myth that would provide a narrative context for the scene has been determined.

Darwinian connection

Charles Darwin used the nomenclature ''Inuus ecaudatus'' in writing of the Barbary macaque, now classified as ''Macaca sylvanus''., p. 1132 Charles Kingsley wrote to Darwin in January 1862 speculating that certain mythological beings may represent cultural memories of creatures "intermediate between man & the ape" who became extinct as a result of natural selection:

References

{{Reflist

Fertility gods
Roman gods
Animal gods