Lusus is the supposed son or companion of

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Gre ...

, the

Roman god Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the Latin literature, literature and Roman art, visual arts of the Romans, and is a form of Roman folklore. "Roman mythology" may also refer to the modern study of these ...

of wine and divine madness, to whom Portuguese

national myth A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as important national symbols and affirm a set of national values. A myth is entirely ficticious but it is often mixture with aspects of histori ...

ology attributed the foundation of ancient

Lusitania Lusitania (; ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province encompassing most of modern-day Portugal (south of the Douro River) and a large portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and Province of Salamanca). Romans named the region after th ...

and the fatherhood of its inhabitants, the

Lusitanians The Lusitanians were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European-speaking people living in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, in present-day central Portugal and Extremadura and Castilla y Leon of Spain. It is uncertain whether the Lusitanians ...

, seen as the ancestors of the modern

Portuguese people The Portuguese people ( – masculine – or ''Portuguesas'') are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation Ethnic groups in Europe, indigenous to Portugal, a country that occupies the west side of the Iberian Peninsula in ...

. Lusus thus has functioned in Portuguese culture as a

founding myth An origin myth is a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place a ...

Origins of the name

With the Roman conquest of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

(between 219 and 17 BC), the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

was established, broadly in what is today Portugal south of the

Douro The Douro (, , , ; ; ) is the largest river of the Iberian Peninsula by discharge. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in the Spanish Soria Province, province of Soria, meanders briefly south, then flows generally west through the northern par ...

river together with

Extremadura Extremadura ( ; ; ; ; Fala language, Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is a landlocked autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, Spain, Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central- ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. There are no historic records of the

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

s ''Luso'' or Lusus amongst the

Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula This is a list of the pre- Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania, i.e., modern Portugal, Spain and Andorra). Some closely fit the concept of a people, ethnic group or tribe. Others are confederations or even unions of tribe ...

(in this specific areas,

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

or pre-Celts). The etymology of ''Lusitania'', like that of ''Lusitani'', is unclear. The name may be of Celtic origin, or derive from ''Lucis'' or ''Lusis'', an ancient people mentioned in

Avienius Postumius Rufius Festus Avienius (or Avienus) was a Latin literature, Latin writer of the 4th century AD. He was a native of Volsinii in Etruria, from the distinguished family of the Rufii Festi. Avienius is not identical with the historian Fest ...

's ''

Ora maritima ("The Sea Coast") is a poem written by Avienius. It has been claimed to contain borrowings from the ''Massaliote Periplus'' (perhaps dating to the 6th century BC).Donnchadh Ó Corráin Chapter 1 "Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland", in ''Th ...

'' (4th century AD, but drawing on the Massaliote Periplus of the 6th century BC).

Origins of the mythological character

The entire character of Lusus in fact seems to derive from a

mistranslation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

of an expression in Pliny's ''

Naturalis Historia The ''Natural History'' () is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work' ...

''. Pliny writes: " M. Varro informs us that... the name 'Lusitania' is derived from the games (''lusum'') of Father Bacchus, or the fury (''lyssam'') of his frantic attendants, and that Pan was the governor of the whole of it." The mistake would have been in the interpretation of the word ''lusum'' as a

proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

("Lusus") rather than as the

common noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example n ...

meaning "games": thus "''lusum ..liberi patris''" becomes "Lusus of father Bacchus" rather than "the sportiveness of father Bacchus." The resulting interpretation made "Lusus" a companion or son of Bacchus. It is this interpretation that is seen in Luís Vaz de Camões's '' Lusiads'' ( canto III, strophe 21): :Esta foi Lusitania, derivada :De Luso, ou Lysa, que de Baccho antigo :Filhos foram, parece, ou companheiros, :E nella então os incolas primeiros. :This Lusitania was; in whom we greet :Lusus, or Lysa, who the offspring were, :Or friends, of ancient Bacchus, as appears, :And her first dwellers in her earliest years.

In Portugal

In ''The Lusiads'' by Camões (1572), Lusus was the progenitor of the tribe of the Lusitanians and the founder of Lusitania. For the Portuguese of the 16th century it was important to look at the past prior to the

Moorish The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...

domination to find the origins of the nationality. These interpretations would strongly be propagated by the authoritarian right-wing regime of the Estado Novo during the 20th century.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Portuguese literature Characters in Roman mythology Portuguese mythology

Origins of the name

Origins of the mythological character

In Portugal

See also

References