Editing Pan (god) (section)

== Parentage ==
[[File:Archive-ugent-be-E898690E-0C16-11E3-8D98-58C697481370 DS-24 (2).jpg|left|thumb|Pan illustrated in the Flemish magazine ''Regenboog''. Draft for the woodcut ''Pan'' of [[Jozef Cantré]]. Published in 1918.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Regenboog. Nr.1 Verluid|url=https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be:E898690E-0C16-11E3-8D98-58C697481370#?c=&m=&s=&cv=5&xywh=-639,0,5728,3376|access-date=2020-08-31|website=lib.ugent.be}}</ref>]]

[[File:Pan87.3.jpg|thumb|250x250px|Mask of the god Pan, detail from a bronze stamnoid [[situla]], 340–320 BC, part of the [[Vassil Bojkov Collection]], [[Sofia]], [[Bulgaria]]]]

Numerous different parentages are given for Pan by different authors.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA215 p. 215]: "accounts of his parentage vary greatly"; Gantz, p. 110: "his parentage was quite disputed".</ref> According to the ''[[Homeric Hymn]] to Pan'', he is the child of [[Hermes]] and an (unnamed) daughter of Dryops.<ref>Gantz, p. 110; Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA215 p. 215]; ''[[Homeric Hymn]] to Pan'' (19), [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0013.tlg019.perseus-eng1:1 34&ndash;9].</ref> Several authors state that Pan is the son of Hermes and "[[Penelope (mother of Pan)|Penelope]]", apparently [[Penelope]], the wife of [[Odysseus]]:<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA215 p. 215]; March, [https://archive.org/details/March.Jenny_Cassells.Dictionary.of.Classical.Mythology/page/582/mode/2up?view=theater p. 582]. According to Hard, the idea of [[Penelope]] being the mother "is so odd that it is tempting to suppose that this Penelope was not originally the wife of Odysseus, but an entirely different figure, perhaps an Arcadian nymph or the above-mentioned daughter of Dryops".</ref> according to [[Herodotus]], this was the version which was believed by the Greeks,<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA215 p. 215&ndash;6]; [[Herodotus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng1:2.145 2.145].</ref> and later sources such as [[Cicero]] and [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] call Pan the son of Mercury and Penelope.<ref>[[Cicero]], ''[[De Natura Deorum]]'' [https://archive.org/details/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft/page/340/mode/2up?view=theater 3.22.56 (pp. 340, 341)]; [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#224 224].</ref> In some early sources such as [[Pindar]] (c. 518 – c. 438 BC) and [[Hecataeus of Miletus|Hecataeus]] (c. 550 – c. 476 BC), he is called the child of Penelope by [[Apollo]].<ref>Gantz, p. 110; [[Pindar]], [https://archive.org/details/carminacumfragme0000pind_a8w5/page/n243/mode/2up?view=theater fr. 90 Bowra]; ''[[FGrHist]]'' [https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:fgrh.0001.bnjo-1-ed-grc:f371 1 F371] [= Scholia on [[Lucan]]'s ''[[Pharsalia]]'', 3.402.110.25].</ref> Apollodorus records two distinct divinities named Pan; one who was the son of Hermes and Penelope, and the other who had Zeus and a nymph named Hybris for his parents, and was the mentor of Apollo.<ref>Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheca'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.4.1 1.4.1], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:e.7.38 E.7.38].</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:8.12.5 8.12.5].</ref> Other sources ([[Duris of Samos]]; the Vergilian commentator [[Servius (grammarian)|Servius]]) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result.<ref>Frazer, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apollodorus_mythographer-library/1921/pb_LCL122.305.xml#note_LCL122_305_1 p. 305 n. 1].</ref> This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν).<ref>The [[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Pan]] provides the earliest example of this wordplay, suggesting that Pan's name was born from the fact that he delighted "all" the gods.</ref> According to Smith's ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', Apollodorus has his parents as Hermes and Oeneis, while scholia on Theocritus have Aether and Oeneis.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ACL3129.0003.001/114?rgn=full+text;view=image;q1=pan |title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology |year=1867 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=William |volume=III |location=Boston |pages=106 |access-date=30 May 2023}}</ref>

Like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the [[Twelve Olympians|Olympians]], if it is true that he gave [[Artemis]] her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to [[Apollo]]. Pan might be multiplied as the '''Pans''' (Burkert 1985, III.3.2; Ruck and Staples, 1994, p.&nbsp;132<ref>Pan "even boasted that he had slept with every maenad that ever was—to facilitate that extraordinary feat, he could be multiplied into a whole brotherhood of Pans."</ref>) or the ''Paniskoi''. Kerenyi (p.&nbsp;174) notes from [[scholia]] that [[Aeschylus]] in ''Rhesus'' distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of [[Arcas]], and one a son of [[Cronus]]. "In the retinue of [[Dionysos]], or in depictions of wild landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi, who played the same part as the [[Satyr]]s".

[[Herodotus]] wrote that according to Egyptian chronology, Pan was the most ancient of the gods; but according to the version in which Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, he was born only eight hundred years before Herodotus, and thus after the Trojan war.{{efn-lr|Herodotus was born about 485 BC, so by his reckoning Pan would have been born around 1285—''earlier'' than the Trojan War as estimated by most of the Greek antiquarians, and a century before the date reckoned by Eratosthenes.}} Herodotus concluded that that would be when the Greeks first learnt the name of Pan.<ref>[[Herodotus]], ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' II.145</ref>