In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (;"Pan" (Greek mythology) entry in Collins English Dictionary. ) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs.Edwin L. Brown, "The Lycidas of Theocritus Idyll 7", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 1981:59–100. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.
In Roman religion and myth, Pan was frequently identified with Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Silvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands, and Inuus, a vaguely defined deity also sometimes identified with Faunus. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of Western Europe and also in the twentieth-century Neopagan movement.The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Hutton, Ronald, chapter 3
Origins Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god *Péh₂usōn, whom they believe to have been an important pastoral deity (*Péh₂usōn shares an origin with the modern English word "pasture")."*pa-". Online Etymology Dictionary. The Rigvedic psychopomp god Pushan (from PIE zero grade *Ph₂usōn) is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan, both of whom are associated with goats, was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz.H. Collitz, "Wodan, Hermes und Pushan," Festskrift tillägnad Hugo Pipping pȧ hans sextioȧrsdag den 5 November 1924 1924, pp 574–587.R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 1149. The familiar form of the name Pan is contracted from earlier Πάων, derived from the root *peh₂- (guard, watch over). According to Edwin L. Brown, the name Pan is probably a cognate with the Greek word ὀπάων "companion".Edwin L. Brown, "The Divine Name 'Pan'", Transactions of the American Philological Association 107 (1977:57–61), notes (p. 59) that the first inscription mentioning Pan is a sixth-century dedication to ΠΑΟΝΙ, a "still uncontracted" form.
In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar's Pythian Ode iii. 78, Pan is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele; Pindar refers to maidens worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet's house in Boeotia.. See note 5 to Pythian Ode III, "For Heiron of Syracuse, Winner in the Horse-race."
Worship The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people, culturally separated from other Greeks. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase.Theocritus. vii. 107
Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens. These are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. Although there were exceptions like the Sanctuary of Pan on the Neda River gorge in the southwestern Peloponnese, the ruins of which survive to this day, the Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in ancient Egypt and the sanctuary on the mount Homole in Thessaly.Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Homole In the fourth century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion.Sear, David R. (1978). Greek Coins and Their Values . Volume I: Europe (pp. 168–169). Seaby Ltd., London.
Archaeologists, while excavating a Byzantine church of around 400 AD in Banyas, discovered in the walls of the church an altar of the god Pan with a Greek inscription, dating back to the second or third century AD. The inscription reads, "Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanus. He built the altar using his own personal money in fulfillment of a vow he made."Altar to Greek god found in wall of Byzantine church raises questions
In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era,Eliade, Mircea (1982) A History of Religious Ideas Vol. 2. University of Chicago Press. § 205. Pan is identified with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros.In the second-century "Hieronyman Theogony', which harmonized Orphic themes from the theogony of Protogonos with Stoicism, he is Protogonos, Phanes, Zeus and Pan; in the Orphic Rhapsodies he is additionally called Metis, Eros, Erikepaios and Bromios. The inclusion of Pan seems to be a Hellenic syncretization (West, M. L. (1983) The Orphic Poems. Oxford:Oxford University Press. p. 205).
Epithets
Aegocerus () was an epithet of Pan descriptive of his figure with the horns of a goat.Lucan, ix. 536; Lucretius, v. 614. Lyterius (), meaning Deliverer. There was a sanctuary at Troezen, and he had this epithet because he was believed during a plague to have revealed in dreams the proper remedy against the disease.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Lyterius Maenalius () or Maenalides (), derived from mount Maenalus which was sacred to the god.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, Maenalius
Parentage
Numerous parentages are given for Pan by different authors.Hard, p. 215: "accounts of his parentage vary greatly"; Gantz, p. 110: "his parentage was quite disputed". According to the Homeric Hymn to Pan, he is the child of Hermes and an unnamed daughter of Dryops.Gantz, p. 110; Hard, p. 215; Homeric Hymn to Pan (19), 34–9. Several authors state that Pan is the son of Hermes and "Penelope", apparently Penelope, the wife of Odysseus:Hard, p. 215; March, p. 582. According to Hard, the idea of Penelope being the mother "is so odd that it is tempting to suppose that this Penelope was not originally the wife of Odysseus, but an entirely different figure, perhaps an Arcadian nymph or the above-mentioned daughter of Dryops". according to Herodotus, this was the version which was believed by the Greeks,Hard, p. 215–6; Herodotus, 2.145. and later sources such as Cicero and Hyginus call Pan the son of Mercury and Penelope.Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.22.56 (pp. 340, 341); Hyginus, Fabulae 224. In some early sources such as Pindar (c. 518 – c. 438 BC) and Hecataeus (c. 550 – c. 476 BC), he is called the child of Penelope by Apollo.Gantz, p. 110; Pindar, fr. 90 Bowra; FGrHist 1 F371 [= Scholia on Lucan's Pharsalia, 3.402.110.25]. Apollodorus records two distinct divinities named Pan; one who was the son of Hermes and Penelope, and the other who had Zeus and a nymph named Hybris for his parents, and was the mentor of Apollo.Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.1, E.7.38. Pausanias records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return.Pausanias, 8.12.5. Other sources (Duris of Samos; the Vergilian commentator Servius) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result.Frazer, p. 305 n. 1. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν).The Homeric Hymn to Pan provides the earliest example of this wordplay, suggesting that Pan's name was born from the fact that he delighted "all" the gods. According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Apollodorus has his parents as Hermes and Oeneis, while scholia on Theocritus have Aether and Oeneis.
Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo. Pan might be multiplied as the Pans (Burkert 1985, III.3.2; Ruck and Staples, 1994, p. 132Pan "even boasted that he had slept with every maenad that ever was—to facilitate that extraordinary feat, he could be multiplied into a whole brotherhood of Pans.") or the Paniskoi. Kerenyi (p. 174) notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas, and one a son of Cronus. "In the retinue of Dionysos, or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the Satyrs".
Herodotus wrote that according to Egyptian chronology, Pan was the most ancient of the gods; but according to the version in which Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, he was born only eight hundred years before Herodotus, and thus after the Trojan war. Herodotus concluded that that would be when the Greeks first learnt the name of Pan.Herodotus, Histories II.145
Mythology
Battle with Typhon The goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus's battle with Typhon, Aegipan and Hermes stole back Zeus's "sinews" that Typhon had hidden away in the Corycian Cave."In this story Hermes is clearly out of place. He was one of the youngest sons of Zeus and was brought into the story only because... he was a master/thief. The real participant in the story was Aigipan: the god Pan, that is to say. in his quality of a goat (aix). (Kerenyi, p. 28). Kerenyi points out that Python of Delphi had a son Aix (Plutarch, Moralia 293c) and detects a note of kinship betrayal. Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by letting out a horrible screech and scattering them in terror. According to some traditions, Aegipan was the son of Pan, rather than his father.
The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish's tail. A myth reported as "Egyptian" in Hyginus's Poetic Astronomy says that when Aegipanthat is, Pan in his goat-god aspectKerenyi, p. 95.was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dived into the river Nile; the parts above water remained a goat, but those submerged changed into a fish. Admiring Pan's ruse, Zeus placed his image amongst the stars.Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy 2.18: see
Erotic aspects Pan is famous for his sexual prowess and is often depicted with a phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to shepherds.Dio Chrysostom, Discourses, vi. 20.
There was a legend that Pan seduced the moon goddess Selene, deceiving her with a sheep's fleece.Hard, p. 46; Gantz, p. 36; Kerenyi, pp. 175, 196; Grimal, s.v. Selene; Virgil, Georgics 3.391–93 has Pan capturing and deceiving Luna with the gift of a fleece; Servius, Commentary on the Georgics of Vergil 391 ascribes to the Greek poet Nicander an earlier account that Pan wrapped himself in a fleece to disguise himself as a sheep.
One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his pan flute, fashioned from lengths of hollow reed. Syrinx was a lovely wood-nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Ladon, the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and did not stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into a reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth, Pan was seldom seen without it.