#pandeity

[thegrapeandthefig]

Hey! this is kind of a weird question but is there a myth about Apollo adopting and raising baby Pan? I read about it in his wikipedia page but I can’t find any sources for it

That doesn’t ring any bell for me, at least not in the form of it being by adoption. What I did find on the Wikipedia page for Pan (and with a reference) is the version of Pan’s parentage given by Pindar and Hecataeus of Miletus. This is the passage Wiki refers to (Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996):

The fragmentary nature of these sources make the situation a bit difficult and I haven’t found a way to access these fragments to see what they actually say, aside from the note attached to Hekataios 1F371 (in Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker), which I assume is what “note emendation” refers to:

Pindar and Hekataios say that he is son of Apollo and Penelope, others of Mercury and Penelope. Euforio considers him son of Ulixes. Some, such as Apollodorus, do relate that he is a god without an ancestor. About him Sergius, Vergil’s scholiast, (Buc. 2.31) so says…* (Transl. E. Bianchelli)

Either way, their existence is enough to assume that there must have been, at some point in time and possibly locally, a version of a parentage myth for Pan that included Apollo. This said, there is nothing there - as far as I’m aware - that mention Apollo adopting and raising child Pan.

Though this makes me wonder if what you came across wasn’t a misinterpretation of either that or of the idea that Pan taught Apollo prophecy/divination (which comes much later with Pseudo-Apollodorus: "Apollon, after learning the mantic art from Pan, son of Zeus and Thymbris, made his way to Delphi, where Themis gave the oracles at that time.")

I hope this helps in some regards, but do let me know if you end up having more details on the version you encountered, I’m curious to see where it came from too.

[adoniaofearth]

Created an altar for Gaia and Pan using Picrew. Idea from @claamshell and the altar they made!

https://picrew.me/image_maker/1024438

[theprettyinthemundane]

Greek Culture and Why It’s Essential to Better Understanding the Greek Gods (Examining Pan as an Example)

                 Everyone knows the Greek gods are Greek, but what does that mean to us? I think that understanding the culture around the Greek gods is extremely helpful for understanding them better and I’d like to use the Greek god Pan as an example to illustrate just how important I think this is. Greek culture (both ancient and modern) is just as interesting and worth studying too, which is another reason I wanted to talk about it.

                A quick note: The ancient word was incredibly diverse and covered a long period of time. Even between cities practices, myths, and views could be very different, so it is important to point out that there is no “one way” to see most things, even though there are some general things people do agree on. Even the genealogy of gods sometimes varied depending on location and gods themselves could be understood differently across Greece both in location and time (1, 2, 3, 4). Myths were often stories made to be entertaining, not to accurately and completely reflect how gods were seen in a religious sense, so the view of a god that a myth and religious text portrayed were often different. For some deities, understanding Greek culture better may make the difference between a loose group of unrelated domains vs a constellation of domains that paint a bigger, more cohesive picture of how they were viewed, like how something may be greater than the sum of its parts. This is how I think of Pan and his domains. Of course, it is also important to note that Pan is extremely complex, and this post is not meant to be comprehensive, just informative. With that said, let’s talk about the goat god Pan and Greek culture.

            Why Pan? Well, unlike many gods whose origins lay in mythical places, Pan’s origin is Arcadia, a region in the south of Greece (this region has changed since ancient times, but it remains as its own region) (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) . Why does this matter? Because Pan was viewed as an Arcadian (god); even in Thebes and in Athens worshipers connected Pan to this region (1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 11). In other words, how the Greeks viewed Arcadia as a region and culture influenced how they viewed and understood Pan.

            Then first, we should ask, what is Arcadia?

(credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia)

(source: 12)

              Arcadia (Αρκαδία) is a mountainous region in the Peloponnese whose capital is Tripoli (Τρίπολη ) (12).  In ancient times it was seen as a place of harsh wilderness (forests, plains, glens) where most people were shepherds (1, 5). It was “out of the way”, “hard to reach”, even viewed as “spooky” (5) and “uncivilized” (1, 13). This is related to many, if not all of Pan’s domains. In fact, Pan was known as the “ruler of Arcadia” (1, 5, 13) and it was even said that,    

“The region was sometimes called Panland - in Greek, Pania. Pan was as rough as the country, half goat, half god…” (5)  

           Arcadia is the earliest center of Pan’s worship and it was done in formal sanctuaries (1,2, 14). After the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, Pan’s worship spread more widely to the rest of the Greek world (1, 6, 9). After this many people (in Thebes and Athens for example) worshiped Pan in grottos or caves (1, 2, 4, 10, 11). This difference actually reflects how people in those places connected Pan and Arcadia; for them, a cave or grotto  was a wild place, like Arcadia, and since they had few other “wild” spaces this space kept Pan and his connection to the natural world within their worship. A scholar on Pan noted that “his lodging (in a cave at the Acropolis) marks him as connected to origins”(1) and others have pointed out this as well (10, 11) . This makes it clear that this cultural connection was important for how they worshiped and thought of Pan.

The first example: Pan’s relation to music? That was related to Pan being Arcadian;

“The simple, moving music of the shepherds (from Arcadia) gained a wide appreciation over all the Greek world. In time, this pastoral … music began to inspire highly educated poets …” (13)

“The one quality that softened the brutishness of Arcadian life was music, whether performed by the goatherds or played by Pan”(13).

Music is a fundamental part of Pan and he has been called: “a lover of merry noise” (Homeric Hymn to Pan) “a most accomplished dancer, a god of noise and movement, beautiful dancer”, and a “lord of the dances of the gods” (1). Just as music was a big part of other Greeks viewed Arcadia, it was a big part of how people saw Pan; Pan was even said to have created the panpipes and music was an essential part of his cult (1, 14, 15). In fact, the idea that Pan could manifest as music and in natural sounds was popular at times (9, 11). This isn’t to say music was unique to Pan (it wasn’t) or that music was not used to worship other deities (it was) but that music was an essential part of how ancients understood Pan, so we should be aware of that and the potential significance it has.  

           Music was an essential part of Greek and Arcadian education, even according to Plato and Socrates (1, 16). While I do not study the classics, I do think that Pan’s connection to music is symbolic of something more than just “pretty sounds” although I do not feel confident enough in my understanding to make any specific connections to his other domains or aspects. Music was essential to the ancient Greeks and was thought to be important for character / personal development, it was thought to deeply affect the soul and I think this is also reflected in Epidaurus’ hymn to Pan;

“The Epidaurus Hymn reminds us that Pan's music and dance restore a threatened cohesion. Dance, laughter, and noise become, in the festival, signs of a recovered closeness (1).” (cohension was threatened by a recent war)

          Just as music was thought to affect people deeply, Pan also was associated with panic and mania (related to possession), which similarly has a strong affect on people spiritually and emotionally (1). If I were to make any connections between his musical domain and another domain, I would say that Pan’s domain of music seems connected to his domain of nature since his style of dance was called “animalistic”, he was called a “leaper” and for the fact that he was believed to be able to manifest himself in natural sounds, like was mentioned before (1, 9, 11).

A second example: Pan’s nature as a goat/shepherd and a god of fertility is reflective of Arcadia’s reliance on shepherding to sustain life: Pan has been called “divine-he-goat-shepherd”, “indispensable patron of fertility...” and “keeper and protector of the flocks” (1). Pan was a very positive figure because he was thought to help sustain life itself; as one scholar points out, Arcadia is “first and foremost a land fit for herding.” (1).  One noticeably unique thing about Pan compared to the other Greek gods is how he is part goat. Interestingly, Pan was first depicted as a he-goat standing upright, not as a satyr and it seems that Pan was only depicted as a satyr (at least widely) after his cult left Arcadia (1, 17). If one was not aware of how central goats were to Greek (especially Arcadian) society then this may seem random or superficial, but it clearly is not.

             Pan was a fertility god, but this domain is concerned with more than just lust and sex (even though these were important aspects of Pan) but also abundance both sexual and platonic; for example, the birth of twin goats (as opposed to a single goat) was attributed to Pan (1). Another example of this connection between sex and (platonic/ nonsexual) abundance is the description of the meaning of a dream where Pan and the dreamer have sex written by Atermidorus in his Interpretation of Dreams in the 2nd century CE:

“If he (Pan) gives someone something or has sexual intercourse with someone, it fortells great profit, especially if he does not weigh that person down” (18)

This theme of abundance and goats/fertility is related to Pan’s domain of rustic music as well: In a hymn found in the Palentine Anthology, a resource that showed the traditions of herdsmen and shepherds, one poem asks for Pan to play his pipes so that the she-goats might give them lots of milk;

“The poet here attributes to the god's music a power elsewhere expressed in the image of a sexual union with animals. The "divine message" (or "sacred voice": hieron phatin) of the syrinx brings about an abundance of milk. (1)”

            Pan’s domain of shepherding/goats is also related to his role as a god of hunting. Unlike Artemis, Pan’s domain of hunting was only concerned with the type of hunting shepherds would do, that is, hunting small game and hunting to protect the flock (1). Goats were also associated with hunting because mountain goats were hunted for sport (1). In fact, “Arcadians thought Pan responsible for the abundance, and correspondingly for the scarcity, of meat, whether obtained by hunting or by herding” (1). Without understanding this distinction someone might mistakenly think Pan and Artemis were interchangeable in hunting.

        Because we see such a concrete connection here drawn by an ancient Greek, Atermidorus, I think it is more than reasonable to say that the fertility domain was also connected to abundance more generally. Another example is in the story of how Artemis visited Pan in Arcadia and he gifted her hounds which he had bred himself (15, 19). Despite the mention of how the dogs had recently given birth, in this story Pan is “devoid of eroticism”, which further supports this connection between fertility and nonsexual abundance (19.). The hounds represent the fertility aspect of Pan (they recently gave birth) and platonic/non-sexual abundance (Pan gifted them to Artemis and as the author notes, the story is “devoid of eroticism”). Hunting (done by shepherds, associated with Pan) also served to protect the flock, protecting this abundance (1).

Conclusion: Without the context of Arcadia as Pan’s origin, it is hard to have as deep an understanding of him, which I think shows us why culture is also important to learn about.  Without this context people may misunderstand Pan’s domains of fertility/shepherding, hunting music, and nature as disconnected or random, however by understanding Pan’s cultural context (Arcadia / Greece) a clearer and more meaningful image can be seen. These elements are closely related and interrelated, which I think is important because seeing these domains as “somewhat connected” is significantly different than seeing them as “interconnected”.

Here’s a table to summarize what I think we can better understand about Pan with this knowledge:

A disclaimer: This isn’t meant to be all encompassing as Pan is an extremely complex god. I have only focused on the way Pan was viewed by some ancient Greeks, more was written about Pan later. Pan also was not simply a “positive”, or “friendly” god, he was also perceived as terrifying and that aspect of Pan shouldn’t be forgotten or underappreciated. This post was designed to show how important culture is and so I have focused on aspects of Pan that help us see this clearly. That said, I do feel I have touched on most of Pan’s major domains (fertility/shepherding/goats, hunting, music/dance, nature, and panic). I have tried to give a better sense of Pan using context, not take anything out of context, so if you think I have made a mistake or misunderstood anything then please let me know. I am not a classics student, so there is a chance I misinterpreted something along the way. This post serves two purposes: to demonstrate how Greek culture is important for understanding the Greek gods and to shed some more detailed light onto Pan (which requires the first bit). I also do not think everyone interested in Greek gods or mythology needs to write long posts like these, I just want to emphasize that thinking holistically is important. We should just be aware of how everything is interconnected and be open to learning more about different things that can help improve our understanding.

Citations:

1 : Borgeaud, P., & Atlass, K. (1988). The cult of Pan in ancient Greece (p. 58). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 13: 9780226065953

2: Ogden, D. (Ed.). (2010). A companion to Greek religion. John Wiley & Sons.

3: Zolotnikova, O. A. (2017). Becoming Classical Artemis: A Glimpse at the Evolution of the Goddess as Traced in Ancient Arcadia. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 6(5), 08-20. Doi: 10.18533/journal.v6i4.1157

4: David Gilman Romano, & Mary E. Voyatzis. (2014). Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, Part 1: The Upper Sanctuary. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 83(4), 569-652. doi:10.2972/hesperia.83.4.0569 doi: 10.2972/hesperia.83.4.0569

5: WILLS, G. (1998). The Real Arcadia. The American Scholar, 67(3), 15-27. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41212784

6:  GARTZIOU-TATTI, A. (2013). GODS, HEROES, AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, (124), 91-110. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44216258

7: Yioutsos, N. P. (2014). Pan Rituals of Ancient Greece: a multi-Sensory Body Experience. In Archaeoacoustıcs: The Archaeology of Sound, Publication of the 2014 Conference in Malta (Vol. 57).

8: Parker, R. (2011). Analyzing Greek Gods. In On Greek Religion (pp. 64-102). Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press. doi:10.7591/j.ctt7zgrm.7

9: Haldane, J. (1968). Pindar and Pan: Frs. 95-100 Snell. Phoenix, 22(1), 18-31. doi:10.2307/1087034

10: Yioutsos, N., Kamaris, G., Kaleris, K., Papadakos, C., & Mourjopoulos, J. (2018). Archaeoacoustic Research on Caves dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs in Attica, Greece.

11: Yioutsos NP. (2019) Pan Rituals of Ancient Greece Revisited. In: Büster L., Warmenbol E., Mlekuž D. (eds) Between Worlds. Springer, Cham. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-99022-4_7

12: Arcadia. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica - https://www.britannica.com/place/Arcadia-region-Greece

13: Ruff, A. (2015). The Classical Origins of Arcadia. In Arcadian Visions: Pastoral Influences on Poetry, Painting and the Design of Landscape (pp. 1-14). Oxbow Books. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt19704rw.5 , eISBN: 978-1-909686-69-4

14: Yioutsos, N. P. (2014). Pan Rituals of Ancient Greece: a Multi-Sensory Body Experience. In Archaeoacoustıcs: The Archaeology of Sound, Publication of the 2014 Conference in Malta (Vol. 57).

15: Rinkevich, T. E. (1973). Comic structure in Theocritus 1-7 (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University).

16: Stamou, L. (2002). Plato and Aristotle on music and music education: Lessons from ancient Greece. International Journal of Music Education, (1), 3-16.

17: Campbell, G. L. (Ed.). (2014). The Oxford handbook of animals in classical thought and life. Oxford Handbooks. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199589425.001.0001 , ISBN: 9780199589425

18: Stewart, C. (2002). Erotic Dreams and Nightmares from Antiquity to the Present. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8(2), 279-309. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/3134476

19: Faulkner, A. (2013). Et in Arcadia Diana: An Encounter with Pan in Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis. Classical Philology, 108(3), 223-234. doi:10.1086/672004

Homeric Hymn to Pan: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D19

[hellamagickal]

Pan is whispering in the woods, if you choose to go out and hear him. He's with us.

[greekromangods]

Pan

1686–1689

Simon Mazière (1649–1722)

Marble

Château de Versailles

** Visit my Links page for my other blogs & Facebook Pages

[will-o-the-witch]

Worshiping Pan (An extremely brief starter kit)

Overview

Pan is the Greek god of the wild, shepherds, flocks, rustic music, and rustic prophecy. He’s often seen as the border between civilization and the untamed wild, depicted as a satyr/faun with horns and goat legs. Companion to nymphs and a member of Dionysos’s entourage, many people worship him for his connection hunting, strong sexuality, madness (letting one’s wild side take over,) and undomesticated nature.

Ways to Connect

Spend time outside, particularly in areas where the nature is unkempt. 

Spend time with farm animals, especially ones that can’t be fully domesticated (there’s a reason he’s so strongly associated with goats.)

Dance like nobody is looking 

Ecstatic experiences, like parties and other places you can really let loose

Rustic music, especially with flutes

Help the planet, clean up litter

Offerings and reading Pan’s mythos

Altar Decor Ideas

Pressed plants

Goat and sheep iconography

Furs, antlers, and other animal items (ethically sourced is preferable, of course. If they’re hunted see if it was for meat and if every part of the animal is used, if possible.)

Pan pipes 

Pictures of landscapes and nature

Other Notes

The Roman version of Pan is Faunus. While they are very similar there are some differences between them, especially in their depiction. 

His name is where the word “panic” comes from, using noise to cause chaos against troops in battle or freaking out travelers in his area. 

Pan is the son of Hermes and a nymph. Sometimes this nymph has a name, other times not. 

A really traditional way of worshiping him involves night-long parties, a lot of dance, and knowing he’s shown up to the party when someone gets “possessed.” 

UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis)

While he can be very serious and even frightening, his normal face-to-face vibe during prayer is more like a weird friendly uncle. 

Due to so many myths of him losing love interests or comforting others who have lost love, I consider him to be a god of heartache as well, willing to help those who are hurting. 

I associate him with patchouli and pine. 

I also associate him with the That’s Not a Deer up in the mountains near here. 

If you would like to see this kind of post with other deities, let me know!

[pascaldice]

Pan, "lover of merry nosie"

Laughter and good humor were considered blessings from Pan : )

(click for better quality)

[satyr-stag]

I feel so alive in Pan's presence. Like I have infinite potential for growth and change.

[mercurialtongued]

so

dreamt about Pan

all I remember was the sound of his voice. He said three things to me. The only thing of that I remember was him saying ‘let me tell you a story’

his voice was deep, silky and had almost... a cadence/rhythm to it.

then I was talking with a group of friends and talking to them about how I’m non-binary, but keep finding myself leaning towards masculinity. And that wearing a dress doesn’t make me a woman.

so that was interesting!

[sheepywitch]

Saw pan in my dreams last night. Been a while since I had a visit, though I'm not sure if I can even call this one a "visit" lmao.

In my dream I was actually working on helping someone else get into contact with Hades for something they wanted to know, like interviewing or something to see if he'd be a good deity for them, and pan just busts out of the woods into the path and races past me, slows and turns back, but still trotting away backwards and was like "oh hey, you! I gotta get more mead for the party, can't talk, but I'll see ya soon!" And he just scampered off and I'm left there mouth agape and one hand outstretched towards him like ???hey wait??? It's been a long time???

That was it lmao. The person I was helping was like you good bruh? And I just had to carry on like "yup that's just my deity pan, that's how he is."

Pan, next time invite me to the dream party instead of letting my dream play out as if I'm working. I work enough in the mortal realm I wanna have some fun when I'm off the clock 😂

[thegrapeandthefig]

Please talk to me more about Pan, I need to know things ☺️

As far as I'm aware, the biggest cave of Pan known to us is in Marathon, for reasons Herodotus tells us about (6.105). In brief:

In the days before the Battle of Marathon, the Athenian runner Pheidippides, who had been sent to Sparta to ask for help, encountered the god Pan on Mount Parthenion near Tegea. The god admonished the Athenians for not honouring him despite his goodwill. Sometime after their victory, the Athenians instituted a cult of Pan on the slope of the Acropolis in remembrance of the god’s words.

It's likely that the spread of his cult throughout Attica is directly linked to the effect of the victory at Marathon, including the cave of Marathon. What's even more fascinating, though, is that the installation of the cult of Pan in caves is an Attic/Athenian innovation that spread out later to other parts of Greece, while in Arcadia Pan was initially worshipped in open-air shrines.

[adoniaofearth]

Pan

Patronage:

Shepherds

Hunters

Mountains

Forests

Meadows

Dog Packs

Panic

Rustic Music

Rustic Prophecy

Small Game

Animal Science

Parents:

Hermes and a Nymph (varies by myth)

Raised by Nymphs

Sacred Plants:

Corsican Pine

Water-reeds

Mountain beech

Sacred Animals:

Goats

Bees

Tortoises

Symbols:

Panpipes

Offerings:

Vases

Lamps

Grasshoppers Made of Gold

Loves:

Echo

Pitys

Selene

Syrinx

Aphrodite

Cult Locations:

Attica, Southern Greece

Sicyonia, Southern Greece

Argolis, Southern Greece

Elis, Southern Greece

Arcadia, Southern Greece

Phocis, Southern Greece

Latium, Central Italy

Cult Titles & Epithets:

Nomios = of the pastures

Agreus = of the hunt

Agrotas = giver of pasture

Phorbas = terrifying one

Lytêrios = releasing

Sinoeis = mischief, bane

Skoleitas = crooked

Akrôritês = of mt. Acroria

Haliplanktos = sea-roaming

Other:

Delighted the gods as a baby, especially Dionysus

Taught Apollo prophecy

From Arcadia

Sometimes Associated with Delphi and Athens

The Cult in Athens was Established After the Battle of Marathon

His Roman Counterpart is Faunus

Sources:

https://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Pan.html

https://www.theoi.com/Cult/PanCult.html

https://www.worldhistory.org/Pan/

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pan_(mythology)

*Note: this is not all of the information on Pan that is out there! (Image isn’t mine)

[theprettyinthemundane]

Earliest art of Pan!

Thanks to @thegrapeandthefig​ for finding this for me! : )

We’ve all seen Pan depicted as a satyr, so when I read that the first depiction of Pan was of him as a goat I really wanted to see what that looked like (this is from “The cult of Pan in ancient Greece” by Borgeaud  btw). Anyway, here it is! I thought I would share it here in case anyone else was interested!

Here’s a picture that shows the other stuff around him

This is from 500—490 BCE and was found in Arcadia (Pan’s origin) it was probably painted by an Attic craftsman. The paper states that this was a representation of a demonic Pan but I’m not sure what that means exactly. Ofc Pan wasn’t generally considered a demon (and what that word means for ancient Greeks is probably different than what it means to us today). And if someone who knows more about this has something to add I’d love to hear it! Anyway yeah! Pan is cool and this is literally the earliest art of him that we still have today and I think that’s pretty neat!

Sources below also as always if I got anything wrong please let me know : )

Book i mentioned in the beginning:

Borgeaud, P., & Atlass, K. (1988). The cult of Pan in ancient Greece  Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 13: 9780226065953

Art/Pottery from :

Hübinger, U. 1992. On Pan’s Iconography and the Cult in the Sanctuary of Pan on the Slopes of Mount Lykaion. In Hägg, R. (Ed.), The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Periods: Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organised by the Swedish Institute at Athens and the European Cultural Centre of Delphi (Delphi, 16-18 Novembre 1990). Presses universitaires de Liège. doi:10.4000/books.pulg.204

Potentially helpful thing: Usually if you want to read a paper you can copy/paste the doi into sci-hub.tw to get a pdf of it for free!

[hellamagickal]

Gods Dammit

Me: *scrolling through Tumblr*

Me: Boy oh boy I sure do love Pan

Tumblr:

Me: ...

Pan: .....

[greekromangods]

Pan Comforting Psyche

1857–1858

Reinhold Begas (1831–1911)

Marble

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

** Visit my Links page for my other blogs & Facebook Pages

Deserted by Eros, her lover, Psyche bemoans her curiosity and its consequences. Agitated yet demure, she is comforted by Pan, the otherwise frivolous god of nature. The subject allowed Begas to unite a range of contrasts within one sculpture: female/male, tender/rough, youthful/old.

*** Image edited by me.

[teawiththegods]

I saw the post about Ares phone wallpapers and I was wondering if you had any for Pan?

Unfortunately a lot of images featuring Pan has him being a tad bit predatory. BUT I did find some good ones! My favorite are the ones of him consoling Psyche!