Pan (god)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Pan (Greek), is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music: paein means to pasture. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr.
Erotic aspects
Pan is famous for his sexual powers, and is often depicted with an erect phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to shepherds.
He was believed by the Greeks to have plied his charms primarily on maidens and shepherds. Though he failed with Syrinx and Pitys, Pan didn't fail with the Maenads—he had every one of them, in one orgiastic riot or another. To effect this, Pan was sometimes multiplied into a whole tribe of Panes.
Pan's greatest conquest was that of the moon goddess Selene. He accomplished this by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form, and drew her down from the sky into the forest where he seduced her.
See also