A figure both human and bestial, Faunus embodies the primordial bond between humankind and nature. Depicted with goat-like features — the direct ancestor of the Greek satyrs — he was both loved and feared: a spirit of the woods, of wolves, and of the wild forces that roamed the forests. In the Roman imagination, he was considered the son of the Goddess Natura, guardian of fertility and rustic life.

According to Marcus Terentius Varro, as reported by Saint Augustine, the Romans feared that Faunus — or Silvanus — might trouble women who had just given birth during the night. For this reason, they performed an apotropaic ritual: three men, impersonating Picumnus, Pilumnus, and Stercutius, struck the threshold of the house with symbolic tools (axe, pestle, and broom) to protect mother and newborn from hostile presences.

The Cult of Faunus and the Faunalia Rustica
The cult of Faunus was introduced in Rome, according to tradition, by Numa Pompilius, and in time it intertwined with the Greek cult of Pan. The celebrations dedicated to the deity, the Faunalia, were rural festivals tied to livestock fertility, crop protection, and the vitality of the fields.

The Faunalia Rustica, celebrated from December 5th to 8th, marked the end of the agricultural year: they took place outdoors, among propitiatory fires, night dances, and sacrifices of goats or sheep. It was a moment when even the animals “celebrated”: oxen were freed from the yoke and adorned with garlands and ribbons.

In spring, with the rituals that later flowed into the Lupercalia (February 15th), the awakening of nature was invoked. The nighttime dance of the Salii priests and the ritual banquets reflected a world where the human and animal dimensions coexisted without barriers, in a rituality often interpreted by scholars as the echo of very ancient cults.

Faunus, Pan, and the Greek Roots of the Rural Imagination
Over the centuries, Faunus became increasingly identified with Pan, the Greek god of woods, caves, and springs. Like Pan, he embodied the spirit of wild places and hidden waters, typical scenarios of the mythical Arcadia evoked by Latin poets, especially Virgil.

And it is precisely this Greek heritage — made of nymphs, sacred woods, and inspiring springs — that creates a natural bridge with some areas of Salento, a land with an archetypal memory and deeply imbued with water-related sacredness.
A landscape shaped by humans through cisterns, terraces, dry-stone walls, collection channels, and votive caves: architectural forms that do not erase nature but interpret, accommodate, and amplify it.

The Nymphaeum of Felline: a Heart of Water and Myth in the Salento Landscape
One of the places that best encapsulates this sacred dimension is the Nymphaeum of Felline, a site as ancient as it is little known, nestled among olive trees, dry-stone walls, and “caseddhri” in the countryside between Alliste and Ugento.

The area contains all the typical elements of places dedicated to the Nymphs:

– a perennial spring,
– a natural cave enlarged by human hands,
– traces of an ancient water basin,
– cavities and channels that show ritual use of water.

Here, in Messapic times and later Roman times, a sacred site dedicated to water and fertility deities may have developed, in line with other nymphaea of the Mediterranean. The constant flow of water from the cave, still visible today, suggests a ritual continuity that lasted for centuries.

This integration between natural elements and human intervention is one of the hallmarks of Salento’s landscape architecture: a “horizontal” architecture, carved rather than built, where water, rock, and vegetation shape ritual spaces.

Sacred Landscape and Wildlife
The ancient landscape around the Nymphaeum was not as we see it today. Sources and reconstructions describe an area characterized by:

– tall Mediterranean scrub,
– seasonal marshes,
– denser woods,
– the presence of wild animals (wolves, wild boar, roe deer).

An ideal setting for the rural cults of Faunus or Pan, who found in wildness a bridge to the divine.

Land Reclamation, Malaria, and Interrupted Memory
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, hydraulic reclamation works to combat malaria profoundly altered the area: the water basin was diverted, channels were redirected, and much of the structure now appears fragmented.
Yet the spring and the cave endure, silent guardians of a lost ritual world.

An Archaeological Node in the Territory
The Nymphaeum is part of an extraordinary archaeological landscape that includes:

– Terenzano, an important Messapic site,
– the Focone, a Paleolithic area,
– the Bronze Age settlement of contrada Pazze,
– various dolmens, menhirs, and ancient transhumance routes.

This mosaic of places suggests a territory crossed by millennia of cults, mythologies, and traditions.

A Place That Still Speaks
Today the Nymphaeum is a suspended place, where:

– stone, water, and silence,
– the shade and coolness of the cave,
– the wind moving through the olive trees,

create an atmosphere that seems still to hold the presence of Nymphs and Faunus.
A fragment of ancestral landscape miraculously preserved.

It is a perfect example of how in Salento the landscape itself becomes “architecture”: an organism made of caves, hypogea, walls, basins, and carved paths, shaped by humans without ever breaking the balance with nature.

A Cultural Identity to Rediscover
Places like the Nymphaeum — where myth, nature, and history intertwine — are a rare and precious part of Salento’s identity. They deserve attention, protection, and a respectful form of tourism capable of revealing a deeper Salento, tied to its water and its ancient memory.

A shared project between Alliste and Ugento could transform this area into a unique cultural and naturalistic itinerary.

Because Salento, in its truest essence, is a land of water, stone, ancient gods, and legends still alive in the landscape.
And its landscape architecture — made of dry-stone walls, cavities, springs, terraces, and sacred caves — continues to reveal, even today, the millennia-long dialogue between humans and the divine.