Fufluns
Fufluns is the Etruscan god of fertility and wine. He is equated with the Greek Dionysus.
Originally seem Fufluns a etrurischer God of growth and vegetation to have been. This implies in any case at the name * pople from the Etruscan root or * puple ( " bud ", " sprout " ) is derived. This root is also found in the Latin populus ( "people" ).
One of his places of worship seems to be the apparently been named after him Etruscan town Populonia. In coinage the place name appears as Pupluna, pufluna or Fufluna, eg " city Fufluns ".
If the myth of Etruscan inscriptions and portraits to be tapped, it is broadly in line with the tales of Greek mythology. Fufluns was identified from the 5th and probably as early as the 7th century BC with Dionysus / Bacchus. Accordingly, the traditional designation also Fufluns Pacha, where " Pacha " for " Bacchus " is.
In the representations (ceramics, Spiegelgravierungen ) Fufluns is the son of Tinia ( Zeus) and Semla ( Semele ). He, too, is relieved from the hip or the leg Tinias. On an Etruscan Spiegelgravierung provides a description of the scene: except Tinia - Zeus are two nurses, Mean and Thalna and Apulu ( Apollon ) present. Even representations Fufluns with his wife / bride Areatha (corresponding Ariadne ) are known. A black-figure hydria of the 6th century Etruscan shows which are transforming into dolphins pirates who had captured Fufluns - Dionysus.
Insofar as there are no significant deviations from the Greek myth. A striking feature of the iconography Fufluns is merely that it appears more frequently than on the Greek representations as a naked boy, and the relative prominence of his mother Semla - Semele. Often they are presented together. On a Spiegelgravierung seen indulged with head tilted backwards in a kiss as his mother's naked Fufluns.
The cult of Fufluns may have been suppressed in the context of the Bacchanalienskandal 186 BC by the Roman state. Livy suggests that the " infection " Etruscan roots would have had. In later times, there are at least no evidence of veneration Fufluns. Probably his cult merged with that of Bacchus or Liber.