The Great God Pan: the Survival of an Image (walter Neurath Memorial Lectures)

Among the gods of classical antiquity, Pan--that distinctive figure combining the physical characteristics of man and goat--is one of the few to have retained a special place in the imaginations of writers and artists, even into modern times. In this, the twenty-ninth Walter Neurath Memorial Lecture, classical scholar Sir John Boardman describes how the concept of Pan--originally a rustic deity associated with herdsmen in southern Greece--and his familiar pipes developed and was adapted in later times. Whether viewed as a personification of country ways, equated with the excesses of Bacchic revels, or treated as a demon figure, the presence of Pan was felt in the literature and art of antiquity, of the medieval period, and notably in Renaissance and later paintings. Although the ideals that Pan represented in ancient Greece and Rome may have passed into history, the image associated with his name remains as vivid as ever in the minds of modern man.