Gods, Myths, and Heroes - Part 43

 Pan

In ancient Greece, Pan was the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, and rustic music.  He had the legs and horns of a goat.  Above, Pan dancing, from a Roman sarcophagus, 160-170 AD.

Pan was also associated with sex and fertility.  This little statue of Pan in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens has a prominent erection.  Or it might be a statue of a satyr.  Like Pan, satyrs also had the legs of a goat, and they were horny in more ways than one.

After the fall of Rome, the Christian church demonized the Greek and Roman gods, and the image of the fun-loving god Pan morphed into the image of the devil, with horns.

Above is a sculpture of Pan attributed to Michelangelo.  The horns have been reduced to mere nubs.  One scholar, after comparing the face of the statue to a self-portrait of Michelangelo, concluded that this statue is also a disguised self-portrait.  If so, we can speculate whether that's what Michelangelo's cock looked like.

Sculptors continue to depict Pan.  This 1969 group of statues by Jacob Epstein at One Hyde Park, London, portrays Pan driving a family into his realm, the outdoors, in this case, the park.

Above, Lupercalia by Conrad Dressler, 1907.  Lupercalia was a Roman festival dedicated to the god Pan, during which, as Plutarch wrote: "many of the noble youths and the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs."

The word "panic" is actually derived from Pan.  The Greeks believed that Pan could induce panic.  It was said that at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, Pan made the Persians panic and thus helped the Athenian army to win.

There are several sexual myths involving this horny god, most but not all involving women.  In one myth, he pursued a nymph named Syrinx.  She ran away from him and was transformed into a clump of reeds.  Pan cut one of the reeds into different lengths and thus invented the musical instrument known as the panpipes.

But Pan, being the god of shepherds, came into contact with young men much more than young women.  In the painting above on a pottery vessel c. 470 BC, Pan, who has the face of a goat here as well as the legs and horns, is chasing a shepherd, and judging by the god's penis, we know what he wants.

In another myth, Pan taught a shepherd named Daphnis how to play the panpipes, and they became lovers.  Above, Pan and Daphnis with the panpipes.  It's a Roman statue restored in the 1700s, now in Petworth House, England.

Here's another statue of Pan and Daphnis with the panpipes, a Roman copy of a Greek original from the 3rd to 2nd century BC, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples. 

And in case you couldn't see Pan's equipment well enough, someone provided this close-up photo.

Pierino da Vinci, a sculptor who was the nephew of Leonardo, made this bas-relief of Pan and Daphnis in the 1500s.

And finally, if Pan couldn't find any willing young men or women, there were always goats.  This statue of Pan fucking a goat is from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, a town that was buried by the same eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD that destroyed Pompeii.  The statue is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Shocking?  Beastiality?  Well, Pan was evidently part goat, so after all, why shouldn't he?

The Villa of the Papyri is one of the most luxurious ancient Roman houses ever found.  It was full of works of art.  The owners of the house were rich and powerful – the house may have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law.  So, I find it interesting that their treasured possessions included a Roman porn statue of Pan fucking a goat.