Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/78

 64 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY 83. Closely allied to the Satyrs is the exclusively Arca- dian shepherd god Pan ('the feeder '), whose father was the shepherd god Hermes, and whose mother was a daughter of Dry ops, i.e. a Dryad. For, like the Satyrs, he is represented in the form of a he-goat, and so may probably be considered merely a type of these fructifying divinities, who was transformed by the im- agination of the Arcadian shepherds into a divine shep- herd. First of all he produces fruitfulness and increase of the flocks. Moreover, like the shepherds themselves, in the summer he dwells in the rocky caves of the mountains, and in the winter descends into the plains. In the heat of midday he rests, at evening he plays the shepherd's flute (syrinx) ; and as accessory employ- ments he carries on hunting, fishing, and war. Yet it is he that inspires in the flocks, and likewise in their masters, sudden fright (' panic '), hurrying them along into unreasoning flight. His love for the moon goddess Selene is probably to be explained by the fact that moon- shine assures to the flocks a favorable pasturage, fresh with dew. 84. His worship spread from Arcadia by the way of Argolis'and Athens to Parnassus and even to Thessaly. In later times, on account of the relation between his na- ture and that of Dionysus, he came to be looked upon as an attendant of that god, probably by being associated with the Satyrs. Finally, the theorizing of the philoso- phers, by changing the signification of his name (making TO TTOLV = ' the universe '), and by comparing him to the great goat-shaped god of Mendes, in Egypt, transformed him into a great, all-powerful ruler and pervading spirit of the life of nature as a whole, at whose death all this life