Pan Dionysus Relationship

By examining Pan’s background, relationships to other gods, and influence on man we see that he was representative of the reverence and fear with which the Greeks held nature, and also of the wild nature of lust, thus helping to explain the mysterious sounds and sights of which one would experience in the forests and mountains.
Pan, known as Faunus to the Romans, was the god of shepherds, hunters, and the mountain and forest wilds. His name meant “all”, and he “came to be considered a symbol of the universe and a personification of nature.”(Bullfinch pg. 137) As the god of hunters, he chose whether or not to grant them success, and as the god of shepherds, he kept watch over flocks and was also associated with the playing of music. His worship is believed to have originated in Arcadia, a region situated on the Peloponnesus, and this was also his homeland. “All …show more content…
Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope, and was a lesser, earth-dwelling god, but was well liked by the Olympians and was part of the train of Dionysus. He was also always in love with a different nymph, and he would chase after them after his love was unrequited. As a follower of Dionysus, Pan assisted him in his war against the Indians. The nymph Syrinx was one of the objects of Pan’s love and was chased to a riverbank, where she “...begged her Watery Sisters to change her”.(Atsma) Her request was granted, and she was transformed into a bank of reeds, which Pan used to make his panpipes, or syrinx. Another, Pitys, “fled fast as the wind over the mountains to escape the unlawful wooing of Pan, and her fate--how she disappeared into the soil herself;”(Atsma) She metamorphised into a pine tree, which was the sacred tree of Pan. Finally, Echo was a love of Pan, who “Hera cursed her with just an echo for a voice as punishment for distracting her from the affairs of Zeus with her endless