Pan (god)


In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. 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.

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. The Rigvedic psychopomp god Pushan 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. The familiar form of the name Pan is contracted from earlier Πάων, derived from the root *peh₂-. According to Edwin L. Brown, the name Pan is probably a cognate with the Greek word ὀπάων "companion".
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.

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.
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.
In the fourth century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion.
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."
In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is identified with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros.

Epithets

  • Aegocerus was an epithet of Pan descriptive of his figure with the horns of a goat.
  • 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.
  • Maenalius or Maenalides, derived from mount Maenalus which was sacred to the god.

    Parentage

Numerous different parentages are given for Pan by different authors. According to the Homeric Hymn to Pan, he is the child of Hermes and an daughter of Dryops. Several authors state that Pan is the son of Hermes and "Penelope", apparently Penelope, the wife of Odysseus: according to Herodotus, this was the version which was believed by the Greeks, and later sources such as Cicero and Hyginus call Pan the son of Mercury and Penelope. In some early sources such as Pindar and Hecataeus, he is called the child of Penelope by Apollo. 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. Pausanias records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return. Other sources report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name with the Greek word for "all". 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 or the Paniskoi. Kerenyi 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.

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. 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 aspectwas 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.

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.
There was a legend that Pan seduced the moon goddess Selene, deceiving her with a sheep's fleece.
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 didn't 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, 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.
Echo was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Pan, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over Earth. The goddess of the Earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan had two children: Iambe and Iynx. In other versions, Pan had fallen in love with Echo, but she scorned the love of any man but was enraptured by Narcissus. As Echo was cursed by Hera to only be able to repeat words that had been said by someone else, she could not speak for herself. She followed Narcissus to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and changed into a narcissus flower. Echo wasted away, but her voice could still be heard in caves and other such similar places.
Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him. In another version, Pan and the north wind god Boreas clashed over the lovely Pitys. Boreas uprooted all the trees to impress her, but Pan laughed and Pitys chose him. Boreas then chased her and threw her off a cliff resulting in her death. Gaia pitied Pitys and turned her into a pine tree.
According to some traditions, Pan taught Daphnis, a rustic son of Hermes, how to play the pan-pipes, and also fell in love with him.
Women who had had sexual relations with several men were referred to as "Pan girls."

Panic

Disturbed in his secluded afternoon naps, Pan's angry shout inspired panic in lonely places. Following the Titans' assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had frightened the attackers. In the Battle of Marathon, it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.

Music

In two late Roman sources, Hyginus and Ovid, Pan is substituted for the satyr Marsyas in the theme of a musical competition, and the punishment by flaying is omitted.
Pan once had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge Apollo, the god of the lyre, to a trial of skill. Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen to judge. Pan blew on his pipes and gave great satisfaction with his rustic melody to himself and to his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. Midas dissented and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer and turned Midas' ears into those of a donkey.