{ "id": "pan", "type": "entity", "name": "Pan", "summary": "Goat-footed, two-horned god of shepherds and mountain places, son of Hermes in the Homeric Hymn — named Pan because his birth \"delighted all\" the gods — and son of Zeus in Apollodorus; piper, dancer with the nymphs, the god who promised Philippides to fight at Marathon. The Roman Faunus is his counterpart.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "greek", "deities", "shepherds", "wild-places", "music" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "child_of", "target": "hermes" }, { "rel": "equivalent_of", "target": "faunus" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "dionysus" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "apollo" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "zeus" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "homeric-hymns" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "bibliotheca" } ], "questions": [ "Who is Pan?", "Who is the father of Pan?", "Why is Pan called Pan?", "What does Pan look like?", "Did Pan help the Athenians at Marathon?", "Where was Pan worshipped?", "Is Pan the same as Faunus?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The Hymn calls him \"the dear son of Hermes, with his goat's feet and two horns — a lover of merry noise\", who wanders \"through wooded glades … with dancing nymphs\" and holds \"every snowy crest and the mountain peaks\" as his domain — \"Pan, the shepherd-god, long-haired, unkempt\" (HH19 1–14).", "sources": [ "homeric-hymns" ], "confidence": 0.95 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "His birth in the Hymn: Hermes, tending sheep in Arcadia for love of \"the rich-tressed daughter of Dryops\", had by her a child \"with goat's feet and two horns\"; the nurse fled at his face and beard, but Hermes carried him to Olympus, \"and they called the boy Pan because he delighted all their hearts\", Dionysus most of all (HH19 28–47).", "sources": [ "homeric-hymns" ], "confidence": 0.95 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "Apollodorus gives another father: Apollo \"learned the art of prophecy from Pan, the son of Zeus and Hybris\" before taking Delphi (Apollod. 1.4.1). Son of Hermes in the Hymn, son of Zeus in Apollodorus.", "sources": [ "apollodorus-library" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "He is a musician: at evening \"he sounds his note, playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed\", outdoing the nightingale, while the nymphs sing and Echo \"wails about the mountain-top\"; on his back \"he wears a spotted lynx-pelt\" (HH19 14–24).", "sources": [ "homeric-hymns" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Pausanias records the Athenian cult's origin: Philippides, sent to Sparta before Marathon, said \"that near Mount Parthenius he had been met by Pan, who told him that he was friendly to the Athenians and would come to Marathon to fight for them. This deity, then, has been honored for this announcement\" (Paus. 1.28.4).", "sources": [ "pausanias-description" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "His cult is Arcadian above all: \"Mount Maenalus is held to be especially sacred to Pan, so that those who dwell around it say that they can actually hear him playing on his pipes\" (Paus. 8.36.8); he has a sanctuary and grove on Mount Lycaeus (Paus. 8.38.5), altars at Olympia (Paus. 5.15.6, 5.15.8–9), and at Troezen a shrine of Pan Lyterius, \"Releasing\", for the dreams that cured an epidemic (Paus. 2.32.6).", "sources": [ "pausanias-description" ], "confidence": 0.92 } ], "takeaways": [ "Son of Hermes and Dryops's daughter in the Hymn; son of Zeus and Hybris in Apollodorus.", "The name is explained in the Hymn itself — he \"delighted all\" the gods (HH19 47).", "Arcadian god of peaks and flocks whose Athenian cult began with a promise before Marathon (Paus. 1.28.4)." ], "faqs": [ { "q": "Who is the father of Pan?", "claim": "c2" }, { "q": "Why is Pan called Pan?", "claim": "c2" }, { "q": "What does Pan look like?", "claim": "c1" }, { "q": "Did Pan help the Athenians at Marathon?", "claim": "c5" }, { "q": "Where was Pan worshipped?", "claim": "c6" } ], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "theoretical", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "Gives Pan's two fathers from the texts that name them and the sentence in Pausanias that explains why Athens, not only Arcadia, worshipped him.", "confidence": 0.93, "last_verified": "2026-09-03", "media": [], "x": { "myth": { "pantheon": "greek", "kind": "deity", "group": "other", "domains": [ "shepherds", "flocks", "mountains", "wild places", "music" ], "symbols": [ "goat's feet", "horns", "reed pipes", "lynx pelt" ], "wikidata": "Q132582" } }, "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/pan", "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/pan.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "Pan", "description": "Goat-footed, two-horned god of shepherds and mountain places, son of Hermes in the Homeric Hymn — named Pan because his birth \"delighted all\" the gods — and son of Zeus in Apollodorus; piper, dancer with the nymphs, the god who promised Philippides to fight at Marathon. The Roman Faunus is his counterpart.", "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/pan", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-09-03", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "The Homeric Hymns — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0013/" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca) — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg001/tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Pausanias, Description of Greece — tr. W. H. S. Jones (Loeb, 1918–1935), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0525/tlg001/tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "Pan" } }