Pan playing flute, marble. Replica of an original housed in the Vatican Museums in Rome. Pan was a shepherd god originally from Arcadia, the son of Hermes and a nymph. Pan was perceived as an easily irritated and dangerous forest creature, which could cause “panic” fear, hence the word, in cattle herds and armies. As a god of fertility, he was an advantage to shepherds, and had invented the pan flute for their amusement.

The story of ”the death of the great Pan” narrated by Plutarch indicates that Pan could be perceived as a dying and resurrected god of vegetation. Etymological speculation about his name (alluding to the Greek pan ”everything”) created the notion of an “all-god”.