SILVANUS, an ancient Italian god of the woods (silvae), closely allied to Faunus. Virgil speaks of him as a god of fields and cattle, and says that the Pelasgians dedicated a grove to him near Caere. Horace calls him the god of boundaries. Pigs were sacrificed to him, and at harvest festivals he received offerings of milk. He appears sometimes, especially in inscriptions, as a domestic god, and is occasionally associated with the Lares and Penates. Virgil describes him as crowned with fennel and lilies or carrying an uprooted cypress in his hand. On a relief he appears with a crown of pine branches in his hair, a pine branch in his left hand, a skin filled with fruits hanging about his neck, a pruning-knife in his right hand, and a dog by his side. On votive tablets he is offener represented as the god of planting and gardening than as the rough woodland deity.