Pan
Pan,a god whose original home was Arcadia. His name, attested on Mount Lykaion in the form Paoni is certainly derived from the root pa(s), and means ‘guardian of flocks’ (cf. Latin pascere). His appearance is mixed, half man and half goat, not surprising in a region where divine theriomorphism is well attested. His usual attributes of syrinx and lagobolon (a device for catching hares) mark him out as a shepherd. Pan became a kind of national god of Arcadia, being shown in the fourth century on the reverse of coins of Zeus Lycaeus type of the Arcadian League. Starting at the beginning of the 5th cent. bc, Pan spreads into Boeotia and Attica, continuing in the 4th cent. to reach the rest of the Greek world.
The principal myths concern his birth, and there are no fewer than fourteen different versions of his parentage. Most often his father is Hermes, another Arcadian god, but the name of his mother varies,...
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