SILVANO. — God of the Roman religion. His name, although attempts have also been made to explain it otherwise (Etr. selvans), seems to be an adjective derived from the word silva; and, in fact, S. remains throughout Roman history a god of the woods. At most, a distinction is made between a S. silvester and a S. domesticus, according to the god’s functions in the woods and, respectively, in houses and on farms.
It is of the greatest importance that S. in Rome had neither a public festival nor a temple, whereas his private veneration is abundantly documented, especially by inscriptions. In the literature, he is attributed the same features as the god Faunus, who, conversely, had a public cult but almost no inscriptions. It seems clear that this is the same divinity, appearing under one (more ancient?) name in public worship and under another in private worship. S., conceived, like Faunus, as an “incubus,” was considered dangerous to women: in order to protect women in childbirth from him, the divinities Intercidona, Pilumnus, and Deverra were invoked, corresponding to three instruments of domestic apotropaic magic. S. presides over the baths reserved for men. Women are excluded from his cult. Like Faunus, S. is identified with the Greek Pan. His sphere is that of wild nature. In the Illyrian provinces of the Empire, his veneration, associated with that of Diana, appears particularly intense and suggests a Roman interpretation of an akin indigenous divinity. In representations, S. has the appearance of a woodcutter, with a sickle, a tree branch in his hands, and a dog at his feet.
Angelo Brelich
SILVANO. – Homoiousian bishop of Tarsus, about whom relatively little is known. He took part in the Council of Sirmium in 351, and in 357 he hosted St. Cyril of Jerusalem, when the latter was deposed by Acacius of Caesarea (Theodoret, Hist. eccl., II, 26).
His contemporaries did not spare him their praise, and his orthodoxy was also exalted by St. Hilary of Poitiers. At the
Council of Seleucia (359), he maintained that the formula of the so-called Synod in encaenii (Antioch 341) should be approved and accepted, and he was part of the commission of Eastern bishops that was to dispute against Eudoxius of Antioch and Acacius of Caesarea in the presence of the emperor Constantius. On this occasion he distinguished himself particularly in defending the doctrine of the «consubstantiality» of the Word with the Father, also signing the letter addressed to the delegates of Rimini to warn them against the machinations of the Acacians. The legation did not, however, obtain what it desired; indeed, at the Council of Constantinople (360), several bishops were deposed, among them S. (Theodoret, Hist. eccl., II, 23).
S. was one of those numerous semi-Arians of the fourth century who upheld the faith of Nicaea but were scandalized by the term ἀμοιόαιος, because they were convinced that it offered the Sabellians a means of concealing themselves; he therefore maintained that the more appropriate term was ἀμοιόαιος.
He returned to his see under Julian and was part of the legation sent to Pope Liberius and the emperor Valentinian in 366. The latter could not be reached, since he was in Gaul; the legates then turned to the Pope, before whom they professed the Nicene faith and received letters of communion for the Easterners. In the winter of 367 another synod had been convened at Tyana, at which a synod to be convened at Tarsus, S.’s see, was announced for the near future. The purpose of the Synod of Tarsus was to have been the restoration of ecclesiastical peace and concord. But the intervention of the Macedonians and the Acacians with the emperor Valens prevented that Synod from assembling. S. died around 373.