The Seba library treats Faunus in 5 passages, across 2 authors (including Hillman, James; Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich, Harrison, Jane Ellen).
the acoustic and optical phenomena of Faunus are linked with panicky terror, which, after what I have just said about Pan, is easily comprehensible and affords a gratifying confirmation
Roscher identifies Faunus as a Roman nightmare demon whose sensory disturbances — acoustic hallucinations and terrifying visions — confirm his structural identity with Pan as inciter of panic and nocturnal terror.
, Pan and the Nightmare, 1972thesis
Picus and Faunus are magicians, medicine-men, and medicine-men of a class with which we are already familiar … in their skill in spells and their magical potency in matters divine they are said to have gone about Italy practising the same arts as those who in Greece bore the name of Idaean Daktyls.
Harrison, following Plutarch, identifies Faunus and Picus as Italian analogues of the Idaean Daktyls — initiatory sorcerers whose magical and prophetic powers align them with the oldest stratum of pre-Olympian religion.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
Picus, Faunus, and Idaean Daktyls. Conflict of old order and new. Weather-King and Olympian.
Harrison's table of contents explicitly pairs Faunus with Picus and the Idaean Daktyls within a structural argument about the conflict between archaic magician-kings and the incoming Olympian order.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
The powers of these three gods guard the post-parturient woman from the god Silvanus … rough, uncultivated, and repugnant, as from the woods, with the signs of cultivation which are opposed to his nature.
In discussing Silvanus as a dangerous woodland demon threatening post-parturient women, Roscher contextualises the same demonic cluster — forest gods hostile to civilised space — to which Faunus belongs, illuminating the shared nocturnal-predatory character of these Italic spirits.
, Pan and the Nightmare, 1972supporting
Picus was an oracular bird, a tree-guardian, a guardian of kings; he was also himself a king, king over a kingdom ancient and august.
Harrison's extended treatment of Picus as oracular bird-king and royal guardian establishes the mythological environment in which Faunus operates as co-magician and fellow daimon of the ancient Italian religious stratum.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting