Pan

...the following posts are all cobbled together from the net, mostly from Wiki:

Pan (Gk. from paein "to pasture")
Gk. religion & mythology — the "agent", "guardian" or "attendant" of the Great Goddess (Cybele).


Z22.4 PAN
Museum Collection: Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey
Catalogue Number: Antakya 873
Type: Mosaic
Context: From Daphne near Antioch
Date: C2nd - C3rd AD
Period: Imperial Roman
SUMMARY
Detail of Pan with a wine jug from a mosaic depicting the procession of the god Dionysos.

In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar's Pythian Ode iii. 78, [4] Pan appears as the "agent", "guardian" or "attendant" of the Great Goddess (Cybele).

Cybele


Statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions, Imperial, second half of 2nd century a.d.
Roman
Bronze
54 3/4 in. (L. 139.1 cm)
Source: Statuette of Cybele on a cart drawn by lions [Roman] (97.22.24) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The cult of the Anatolian Mother Goddess Cybele was introduced into Rome during the Second Punic War in the late 3rd century B.C. and remained popular until early Christian times. The goddess is shown with her usual attributes, a patera (libation bowl) in her right hand and a large tympanon (drum) in her left. But instead of flanking her throne as they normally do, here the two oversized lions pull a chariot. This elaborate group comes from a fountain, in which spouts projected from the open mouths of the lions. The original cart, harness, and throne no longer survive; the rear left wheel is a nineteenth-century restoration.


(Phrygian Mountain Mother, known to Gks. & Romans as Cybele)
...embodies the fertile Earth
...a goddess of caverns, mountains, walls, fortresses, nature, wild animals (esp. lions and bees)
...known among the Greeks as Μήτηρ (Mētēr "Mother") or Μήτηρ Ὀρεία ("Mountain-Mother"), or, with a particular Anatolian sacred mountain in mind, Idaea, inasmuch as she was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida in Anatolia, or equally Dindymene or Sipylene, with her sacred mountains Mount Dindymon (in Mysia and variously located) or Mount Sipylus in mind.
...In Roman mythology, her equivalent was Magna Mater or "Great Mother".

Pan
...companion of nymphs,
...god of shepherds, flocks, mountain wilds, hunting, rustic music
...hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat (in the same manner as a faun or satyr)
...recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.
...accounts of Pan's genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time.
...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.

Home in rustic Arcadia

...The worship of Pan began in Arcadia

Arcadia:
...always the principal seat of his worship.
...a district of mountain people whom other Greeks disdained.
...Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase (Theocritus. vii. 107).

Panic



"Panic" comes from Greek panikon, "pertaining to Pan." Pan is the god of woods and fields who was the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots.

Pan inspired sudden fear in lonely places, Panic (panikon deima).

Following the Titans' assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had inspired disorder and fear in the attackers resulting in the word 'panic' to describe these emotions.

Of course, Pan was later known for his music, capable of arousing inspiration, sexuality, or panic, depending on his intentions.

In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC to 510 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.[img]http://www.medusaheadpiece.org/wp-content/uploads/Greek%

Mythology

Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by blowing his conch-horn and scattering them in terror. According to some traditions, Aegipan was the son of Pan, rather than his father.

One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his eponymous pan flute. Syrinx was a lovely water-nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Landon, 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 (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.

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 first had one child: Iambe.

Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him.

Erotic aspects

Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with an erect phallus.



He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds. Though he failed with Syrinx and Pitys, Pan didn't fail with the Maenads—he had every one of them, in one orgiastic riot or another. To effect this, Pan was sometimes multiplied into a whole tribe of Panes.

Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her.

Pan and music


Pan teaching his eromenos, the shepherd Daphnis, to play the pipes, 2nd century AD Roman copy of Greek original ca. 100 BC, found in Pompeii

Once Pan 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 umpire. Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and 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 judgement. He 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.

In another version of the myth the first round of the contest was a tie so they were forced to go to a second round. In this round, Apollo demanded that they play standing on their heads. Apollo, playing on the lyre, was unaffected, however Pan's pipe couldn't be played while upsidedown, so Apollo won the contest.

SATYRS

...half-man half-beast nature spirits that haunted the woods and mountains and were the companions of Pan and Dionysus.

These followers of the god of the vine, are great lovers of festivals, revels, drinking, dancing, singing, and generally wild kinds of behavior.

Satyrs have a deserved reputation for assaulting nymphs, and stealing cattle. Satyrs bear on their foreheads small bony protuberances that in a goat would grow into horns. They are often depicted as intoxicated and sexually aroused.

Though Roman satire is sometimes thoughtlessly linked to the Greek satyr plays, satire's only connection to the satyric drama is through the subversive nature of the satyrs themselves, as forces in opposition to urbanity, decorum, and civilization itself.

While satyrs have been called a worthless race, satyrs teach us it is foolish to underestimate the overwhelming power that the sexual instinct possesses to create complex delusions and illusions.

Bacchic dance:



Plato tells us there was a specific dance done by the characters in a Dionysian ritual: Nymphs, Pans, Silenoi, and Satyrs   The Satyr and Silenoi dance had several steps and aspects. Like the Mænads, they would bend deeply forward and backward, but they would also leap --- crouching on one leg, then launching themselves to fall upon the other one. They capered with the Mænads, and would sway their hips accompanied by angular arm movements. Beyond the 'joined hand' gesture and the animal imitations, we do not know specifically what these gestures were. It is likely that the dance steps, like orisha and voudon dances, had strong symbolic aspects but this is lost to us.

Pan

...god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, Pan is known as "The Pasturer," "the Feeder of Flocks." God of herds, fertility and male sexuality,  Pan amuses himself with the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs.

Pan has the horns and legs of a goat and plays a syrinx, a pipe with seven reeds. An ancient god, he has no moral or social aspect whatsoever, and is simply the embodiment of pure, basic instinct.

Some said that Pan taught Apollo the art of prophecy.

Pan especially loves mountains and wild country.

Pan has a dark aspect as well, causing men and animals to go suddenly mad with terror in distant, lonely places or because your superstitious fears have got the best of you. His name is therefore the root word of "panic."

Pan was fond of music, and  known as the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's pipe, which he himself played in a such a masterly manner he once competed against Apollo himself.

Pan and Syrinx.  



One day Pan saw the nymph Syrinx returning to her home. Immediately he started after her and she ran until she came to a river. Syrinx turned into a reed that lined the bank of the river so Pan could not recognize her. Pan grabbed a hand full of reeds in hopes that he could capture Syrinx, but he was unable to locate her. Pan sat down beside the river and started tying the reeds together that he had gathered and soon he came up with a contraption that is known today as the "Pipes of Pan."



...from English poet John Keats (1795-1821):

So did he feel who pulled the bough aside,
That we might look into a forest wide,
Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.
Poor nymph- poor Pan- how he did weep to find
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation, balmy pain.

Selene

Selene the moon goddess is known for her countless love affairs including the shepherd Endymion.  Pan's seduction began with a gift of a  herd of white oxen. Pan accomplished the seduction of Selene by disguising his hairy black goatishness with white fleece. Selene consented to ride on his back, unaware of who he was, and Pan proceeded to ravish her.


Titans

Pan was present at the great battle between the Olympian gods and the Titans and claimed that it has his yelling that caused the Titans to flee.

Pan and Echo.

The nymph ran from him. Pan instilled "panic" in local shepherds and they killed her, destroying her body. Only her voice remains.


Z22.1 PAN & PITYS
Museum Collection: Antakya Museum, Antakya, Turkey
CaType: Mosaic
Period: Imperial Roman
SUMMARY
The goat-legged god Pan sneaks up on a sleeping Nymph, probably either Ekho or Pitys. Above her flits a winged Eros (love god).

Pan and Pitys

In Greek mythology— or more particularly in Ancient Greek poetry— Pitys ("pine") was an Oread nymph who was pursued by Pan. According to a passage in Nonnus' Dionysiaca she was changed into a pine tree by the gods in order to escape him.



Pan and Pitys (from a Greek stamp)

Pan

He was the god of green fields and the guardian of the shepherds associated with the worship of Dionysus, and as a mountain deity with that of Cybele.

He is at home in any wild place but, his favorite is Arcady, where he was born.

He was fond of sportive dances, singing with woodland nymphs and playing on pipes.

He is always in pursuit of a nymph, but, is rarely successful.

Sylvanus and Faunus are Pan's Latin counterparts