Fufluns

Also Known As: also Puphluns; with the epithet Fufluns Pachie or Pacha, the Etruscan form of Bacchus
Region/Culture: Southern Europe
Mythos: Etruscan Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: The Etruscan god of wine and growing things, matched early with the Greek Dionysus and carrying his ivy, his wand and his following of satyrs and maenads.
Role in Mythos: He is the son of the sky god Tinia and the mortal Semla, the partner of Areatha, and one of the gods named on the bronze Liver of Piacenza.
Relation to Humans: Drinkers at Vulci scratched his name on their cups and gave them to him in the fifth century BCE. His image on mirrors and vessels buried with the dead points to a god who was expected to look after people beyond the grave as well as at the table.

Turn the cup over. The top side is Greek work, an Athenian drinking cup of the fifth century BCE with satyrs running round the bowl in red on black. Under the foot, where only the potter and the last owner would ever look, somebody at Vulci has scratched a few words in Etruscan letters that run from right to left. They give the cup away. It belongs now to Fufluns Pachie, at Vulci.

That scratched dedication, repeated on a small group of cups from the same city, is about as close as anyone can get to hearing the Etruscans speak of their wine god. Nothing they wrote about him at length survives. No hymn, no myth told in their own words, no priest’s handbook. What is left is a name, an epithet, a bronze liver, a place-name and a great many pictures, and the pictures do most of the talking.

The name is his own. Fufluns, sometimes spelled Puphluns, is not a Greek loan, and it seems to be tied to the Etruscan name of the coastal city of Populonia, which its people called Pupluna or Fufluna. Which was named for which is an old argument. Either the god gave his name to the town or both grew from a single root to do with sprouting and swelling, and the second reading suits a god who was probably looking after vines and green growth before any Greek potter’s ship came into harbour. The epithet is another matter. Pachie, or Pacha, is simply Bacchus in Etruscan mouths, and it shows the moment of meeting: a local god of growth picks up a Greek surname and, with it, a whole Greek biography.

The biography is the familiar one, with the names changed. The sky god Tinia, who throws the lightning, fathers a child on a mortal woman called Semla. She does not live through the pregnancy. On one engraved mirror the infant Fufluns is shown coming out of Tinia’s thigh, the father having finished the work himself, while attendant goddesses stand ready to catch him. It is the story the Greeks told of Zeus, Semele and Dionysus. The Etruscans took it whole and then did something of their own with it.

The best known image of him is on the back of a bronze mirror from Vulci, made in the fourth century BCE. A woman bends forward, heavy with jewellery, and a slim long-haired boy tips his head back and reaches both arms up round her neck. Their mouths are about to meet. Any Greek viewer would have taken them for lovers. The names engraved beside the figures say otherwise: the boy is Fufluns and the woman is Semla, his mother, brought back from the dead. To one side stands Apulu with a laurel branch, watching, and a small satyr plays the double pipes. The scene is tender, and to a modern eye it is also fairly strange. Etruscan artists returned to this pair more than once, and seem to have cared more about the reunion of mother and son than their Greek teachers ever did.

He has a wife as well. On other mirrors he sits or stands with Areatha, who is Ariadne, the princess Theseus left on an island and the god found there. One mirror puts the two of them in company with Castur and Eiasun, the Etruscan Jason, in a grouping no Greek story explains. It hints at a tale that was told in Etruria and is now gone. Elsewhere he keeps company with an Italic goddess, Vesuna, who has no place in the Greek cycle at all.

In all of this his body is consistent. He is young, smooth-faced and long-haired, crowned with ivy, often bare to the waist or wrapped in a loose cloak, with soft boots or no shoes. He may carry a thyrsus, the fennel staff tipped with a pine cone, or a drinking cup. Around him move satyrs with horse tails and women with torches and tambourines. Early images sometimes give him a beard, as early Greek art gave Dionysus one. The beard goes out of fashion and the boy stays.

Away from the banquet he has a quieter existence in bronze. The Liver of Piacenza is a life-sized model of a sheep’s liver, cast around 100 BCE as a working tool for priests who read the will of the gods in the organs of sacrificed animals. Its surface is divided into small fields, each cut with the name of a god. Fufluns is there twice, once on the outer rim, where sixteen fields answer to the sixteen regions of the Etruscan sky, and once inside. A diviner turning a fresh, warm liver in his hands on the altar would check it against the bronze. A mark in one of those places meant the wine god had something to say.

What he could do follows from what he was. He made vines bear and juice turn. He loosened people, as wine does. He stood for growth and good health, and the mother he raised from the dead and the bride he rescued from a beach suggest a god who could carry others across a border that is normally closed. That is very likely why he is so common in tombs. Mirrors bearing his image were buried with women, and cups given to him went into the ground at Vulci with their owners.

His limits are just as plain. He could not save his own mother at the start. He is no ruler either, since the lightning and the last word belong to Tinia. His deepest weakness is historical. A god who lives by borrowing can be borrowed in turn, and as Rome swallowed the Etruscan cities, Fufluns faded into Liber and Bacchus until only the pictures kept his name. In 186 BCE the Roman senate clamped down hard on Bacchic worship across Italy. No decree mentions Fufluns. By then few people were calling him that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Fufluns in Etruscan mythology?

Fufluns is the Etruscan god of wine and growing things. He is the son of the sky god Tinia and the mortal woman Semla, and the partner of Areatha. The Etruscans matched him with the Greek Dionysus and called him Fufluns Pachie, using their form of the name Bacchus.

Is Fufluns the same as Dionysus?

Fufluns is the Etruscan counterpart of Dionysus, and Etruscan art gives him Dionysus’s birth story, his ivy, his thyrsus and his satyrs. His name is native Etruscan and is linked to the city of Populonia, which suggests he began as a local god of growth. Etruscan images also show scenes with no Greek match, such as his pairing with the goddess Vesuna.

Who are the parents of Fufluns?

The parents of Fufluns are Tinia, the Etruscan sky god, and Semla, a mortal woman. Semla dies while pregnant, and an engraved mirror shows the infant Fufluns being born from Tinia’s thigh. A famous fourth-century BCE mirror from Vulci shows the grown Fufluns embracing Semla after she has been brought back from the dead.

What does Fufluns look like?

Fufluns is usually shown as a beardless young man with long hair and an ivy wreath. He often carries a thyrsus or a drinking cup and is surrounded by satyrs and maenads. Some early images show him as an older man with a beard.

Where does the name Fufluns appear?

The name Fufluns appears on fifth-century BCE drinking cups from Vulci that were dedicated to Fufluns Pachie. It is engraved beside his figure on Etruscan bronze mirrors. It also appears twice on the Liver of Piacenza, a bronze model of a sheep’s liver used by Etruscan diviners.