Pan (god)

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (pæn; Pán) 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's counterpart was Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Sylvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. 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 (*Péh2usōn shares an origin with the modern English word "pasture"). The Rigvedic psychopomp god Pushan (from PIE zero grade *Ph2usōn) 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- (guard, watch over). 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. 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.