PAN (" pasturer ")  , in Greek mythology, son of Hermes and one of the daughters of Dryops (" oak-man "), or of Zeus and the nymph Callisto, god of shepherds, flocks and forests . He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod . The most poetical account of his birth and life is given in the so-called Homeric hymn To Pan . He was born with horns, a goat's beard and feet and a tail, his person being completely covered with hair . His mother was so alarmed at his appearance that she fled; but Hermes took him to Olympus, where he became the favourite of the gods, especially Dionysus . His life and characteristics are typical of the old shepherds and goatherds . He was essentially a rustic god," a wood-spirit conceived in the form of a goat," living in woods and caves, and traversing the tops of the mountains; he protected and gave fertility to flocks; he hunted and fished; and sported and danced with the mountain nymphs . A lover of music, he invented the shepherd's pipe, said to have been made from the reed into which the nymph Syrinx was transformed when fleeing from his embraces (Ovid, Metam. i . 691 sqq.) . With a kind of trumpet formed out of a shell he terrified the Titans in their fight with the Olympian gods . By his unexpected appearance he sometimes inspires men with sudden terror—hence the expression " panic " fear . Like other spirits of the woods and fields, he possesses the power of inspiration and prophecy, in which he is said to have instructed Apollo .

As a nature-god he was brought into connexion with

Cybele and Dionysus, the latter of whom. he accompanied on his Indian expedition . Associated with Pan is a number of Panisci, male and female forest imps, his wives and children, who send evil dreams and apparitions to terrify mankind . His original home was Arcadia; his cult was introduced into Athens at the time of the battle of Marathon, when he promised his assistance against the Persians if the Athenians in return would worship him . A cave was consecrated to him on the north side of the Acropolis, where he was annually honoured with a sacrifice and a torch-race (Herodotus vi . 105) . In later times, by a misinterpretation of his name (or from the identification of the Greek god with the ram-headed Egyptian god Chnum, the creator of the world), he was pantheistically conceived as the universal god (TO rag) . The pine and oak were sacred to him, and his offerings were goats, lambs, cows, new wine, honey and milk . The Romans identified him with Inuus and Faunus . In art Pan is represented in two different aspects . Sometimes he has goat's feet and horns, curly hair and a long beard, half animal, half man; sometimes he is a handsome youth, with long flowing hair, only characterized by horns just beginning to grow, the shepherd's crook and pipe . In bas-reliefs he is often shown presiding over the dances of nymphs, whom he is sometimes pursuing in a state of intoxication . He has furnished some of the attributes of the ordinary conception of the devil .

The

story (alluded to by Milton, Rabelais, Mrs Browning and Schiller) of the 'pilot Thamus, who, sailing near the island of Paxi in the time of Tiberius, was commanded by a mighty voice to proclaim that " Pan is dead," is found in Plutarch (De orac. defectu, 17) . As this story coincided with the birth (or crucifixion) of Christ it was thought to herald the end of the old world and the beginning of the new . According to Roscher (in Neue Jahrbiicher fur Philologie, 1892) it was of Egyptian origin, the name Thamus being connected with Thmouis, a town in the neighbourhood of Mendes, distinguished for the worship of the ram; according to Herodotus (ii . 46), in Egyptian the goat and Pan were both called Mendes . S . Reinach suggests that the words uttered by the " voice " were eaµous, Oaµo"us, sravµeyas, TEBv17Ke (" Tammuz, Tammuz, the all-great, is dead "), and that it was merely the lament for the " great Tammuz " or Adonis (see L . R . Farneil in The Year's Work in Classical Studies, 1907) . See W . Gebhard, Pankultus (Brunswick, 1872) ; P . Wetzel, De Jove et Pane dis arcadicis (Breslau, 1873); W . Immerwahr, Kulte et Mythen Arkadiens (1891), vol. i., and V .

Berard, De l'Origine des cultes arcadiens (1894), who endeavour to show that Pan is a sun-god (4av, 4'alvu) ; articles by W . H . Roscher in Lexikon der Mythologie and by J . A . Hild in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des Anti-guiles.; E . E . Sikes in Classical Review (1895), ix . 70; O . Gruppe, GriechischeMythologie (1906), vol. ii .