Evander
（
Εὔανδρος, “the good man”). A figure
in Latin mythology. He was said to be the son of Hermes and an Arcadian nymph (Pausan. viii.
43.2;
Quaest. Rom. 53). Sixty years before the Trojan War he led a Pelasgian
colony to Latium from Pallantium in Arcadia, and founded a city, Pallantium, near the Tiber,
on the hill which was afterwards named after it the Palatine. Further it was said that he
taught the rude inhabitants of the country writing, music, and other arts; and introduced from
Arcadia the worship of certain gods, in particular of Pan, whom the Italians called Faunus,
with the festival of the
Lupercalia (q.v.), which
was held in his honour. Evander was worshipped at Rome among the heroes of the country (see
Indigetes), and had an altar on the Aventine
Hill. But the whole story is evidently an invention of Greek scholars, who derived the
Lupercalia from the Arcadian Lycaea. The name
Εὔανδρος is
perhaps a translation of the Italian Faunus, while Carmenta, his mother, is an ancient Italian
goddess; but on this, see Nettleship,
Lectures and Essays, pp. 50 foll.
Pallas, the son of Evander, is in like manner a creation of the poets. In Vergil he marches,
at the command of his father, to assist Aeneas, and falls in single combat with Turnus. (See
Verg.
Aen. viii. 575.) Evander had also two daughters, Romé and
Dyna.
