In Roman mythology, Picus was the first king of Latium, son of Saturn (Stercutus), founder of Laurentum, and grandfather of Latinus in Virgil's Aeneid. Skilled in horsemanship and augury, he was transformed into a woodpecker (Latin picus) by Circe when he rejected her love — leaving his wife Canens to waste away on the Tiber's bank. Distinct from Greek figures; the Italic woodpecker of Mars and the Picentes eponym belong to the same Roman-Italic complex.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Picus" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.King of Latium
Augustine and Servius place Picus as Saturn's son and first king of the Laurentes, founder of Laurentum southeast of the later site of Rome. Virgil makes him son of Saturnus and grandfather of Latinus, whose palace still displayed Picus' statue. He was famed for augury and horsemanship; Italic tradition also made him son of Mars, his bird-form a sign of skill in reading omens. The Picentes traced their name to the woodpecker that led colonial bands in the spring rite of the ver sacrum.
II.Circe and Canens
Ovid (Metamorphoses 14) tells that Circe tried to seduce Picus while he hunted on the Laurentine plain; when he stayed faithful to the nymph Canens, she changed him into a woodpecker and his comrades into beasts. Canens searched six days, then faded into air on the Tiber's bank. They had a son, Faunus. Servius preserves a variant in which Picus loved Pomona and Circe transformed both into birds.