god of shepherds among the Greeks, was the son of Mercury, and of a nymph, the daughter of Dryops. He was born a noisy, grinning, hairy infant, fully equipped with horns, a puck-nose, a beard, a tail, and the feet of a goat. As soon as his mother saw her monstrous offspring, she fled from him in horror, and left him to the care of his father. Wrapped up in hare-skins, he was carried by Mercury to Olympus, and was there exhibited to the delighted gods. He was then given out to nymphs to be nursed. The young divinity grew up to be possessed of every rustic accomplishment. His goat-feet could walk lightly and gracefully through the mazes of the dance; his hands could wander nimbly and skilfully over the stops of the pastoral pipe; and his piercing sight, dashing recklessness, and wild lusty halloo, made him the very paragon of hunters. Adorned with all these qualifications, Pan settled down in Arcadia, and undertook the avocations of a rural deity. During his hours of business he protected flocks, bees, and game, and attended to the interests of shepherds, husbandmen, and hunters. A less beneficent part of his employment was to strike sudden fright into large herds of cattle, to startle travellers in lonely places of the forest, and to throw armies into irretrievable rout with a causeless alarm, which was called after him Panic terror. In his hours of leisure he took his mid-day slumber in a grotto, practised upon the syrinx, made love to the nymphs, and conducted with dance and song the greenwood merry-makings of the rustic divinities. He would occasionally pay a visit to Bacchus, a god to whom he was always welcome, on account of his loud-ringing voice, and his musical and callithene accomplishments. Occasionally also would his fondness for the sea lead him down to the coast to patronize fishing and marine amusements. Pan had many temples Panæus and shrines erected to him in Arcadia. There were also many other places in which his worship was observed. Among these was Athens, where a chapel was dedicated to him in consideration of the aid he had given to the Athenians at the battle of Marathon. His sacrifices were milk and honey. In addition to his best-known character as a god of Arcadia, Pan had also other characters. He was identified with the Faunus of the Romans and the Mendes of the Egyptians. He was also latterly considered as the universal god of nature, as the impersonation of the universe—to say.

Panænus, a distinguished Greek painter, was the nephew of the great sculptor Phidias, and flourished at Athens in the fifth century B.C. His principal engagements were of a public nature. He ornamented with painted stories of the gods the Olympian statue of Jupiter which his illustrious uncle had executed. He was also employed to paint with a mixture of saffron and milk the roof of Minerva's temple at Elis. But his masterpiece was the "Battle of Marathon," which constituted one of the decorations of the "Poecile" at Athens. It contained portraits of the Greek leaders Miltiades, Callimachus, and Cyraeirus; and of the Persian leaders Datis and Artaphernes. A further peculiarity was, that it represented the fight in four different stages of its progress. In the first the armies were about to engage; in the second they were maintaining an equal contest; in the third the Greeks were beginning to rout their foes; and in the fourth the Persians were escaping in disorder on board their ships.

Panætius, a celebrated Stoic, was a native of Rhodes, and flourished in the second century B.C. After learning grammar at Pergamum under Crates of Mallus, he settled in Athens as a student of the Stoics. Under Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, the successive heads of the Stoical school, he rose to eminence and repute. The great Roman, Scipio Æmilianus, became his friend, and chose him for a travelling companion; and the Stoics, on the death of Antipater, elected him for their master. It was in this latter capacity that Panætius established his reputation as an original expounder of the ethical doctrines of his school. He modified the severely abstract maxims of the Stoics into a form more suitable for practical life; supplied their defects from the systems of Aristotle, Xenocrates, Theophrastus, Diogenes, and Plato; and clothed them in the fascinating garb of simile and rhetorical ornament. Rectitude was defined to be "living in conformity with our natural impulses." The virtues were divided into contemplative and active; and the useful and the honourable qualities in actions were declared to be coincident. The principal work in which Panætius embodied these principles was a treatise On Duty in three books. It is not extant, but its contents have been incorporated in the first two books of Cicero's De Officiis.