Pan and Antinous

In the Hermes and Antinous post a few days ago, I made an allusion to the subject of the following post.

Hermes was one of the foremost gods of Arcadia; but, Hermes was found in many other places besides Arcadia. One Greek god that was inextricably tied to Arcadia was Pan. There are various birth tales associated with him, but one of the most popular says that he was the son of Hermes by Penelope (the wife of Odysseus!), and that she had to leave Ithaca because her infidelity was revealed…but it was not infidelity with Hermes that caused her to leave, but instead infidelity with the chief of her suitors, who is called Antinous. (In fact, some whitewashing attempts by scholars and historians to disguise the identity, queerness, and divinity of the god Antinous have been done by saying that a statue of him is Antinous the suitor of Penelope…the British Museum store in Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 4 used to have an information card saying this about the bust of Antinous they sold there, of which I bought the last one they had.) However, it does not end there, because Penelope was said to have given birth in the city of Mantineia! So, in many respects, Antinous, Pan, Mantineia, and Arcadia were naturally associated with one another by all sorts of means.

Depictions of Antinous as Pan do not feature him with small goat horns or anything of the sort; and in fact, all the known depictions of Antinous as Pan are on the obverses of coins (from Asia Minor) and contorniate medallions, as for example this one (which I was able to hold in my hands at the British Museum itself). The pedum, or curved shepherd’s staff, was one of the attributes of Pan, and it is given to Antinous to demonstrate this syncretism. The legend on the obverse clearly reads Antínoöu Pani. The reverse shows a winged Nike (or Victoria) with an outstretched victory crown of laurel leaves.

We do have evidence of at least one other Antinous-Pan witnessed in ancient visual culture, in the form of a ship-emblem (which is to say, a figurehead), from P. Oxy. 3980 (found in Volume 59), which reads as follows:

Aurelius Alexander, ex-hypomnematagrophus, strategus of the Oxyrhynchite nome, to the Aurelii Alexander and Stratonicus and associates, decaproti of parts of the lower toparchy, his dearest colleagues, greetings.
In accordance with the written instructions given by my lord the most perfect rationalis Valerius Euethius, have loaded onto the public boat whose emblem is Panantinous, of 2,500 artabas capacity, under the command of Honoratianus, shipper, one thousand…hundred and…-ty six artabas of purest wheat, free from all badness, by the public measure, according to the prescribed measurement…(and for)…per cent…(total) 1,900 artabas.

I love things like this, because they give us a feeling for everyday life and concerns in the early 4th century (as this dates to c. 300-302 CE). Thus, the double theophoric name “Panantinous” indicates that this syncretism existed in places other than just on coins.

The phrase “to honor Pan” was a euphemism for male homoerotic activity in the ancient world, and so it is no surprise that Antinous and Pan also share this trait in common. However, Pan’s various loves for males are usually thwarted in some way, and never come to consummation (and, most often, this is the case with his loves among women and nymphs as well). In a future post (possibly on the 11th of this month), I’ll mention one such further connection between Pan and Antinous; but suffice it to say for now, the Arcadian god of flocks and wild places, of herding and hunting, and of raw animal sexuality, demonstrates that oftentimes these sorts of lusts remain unconsummated. Alas for that. As consensuality is something that is really essential for any sexuality to be valid today, this is not necessarily a bad thing at all. But, it is interesting that Antinous is connected here to Pan, who is lustful but unsatiated, and therefore we may think of this as a kind of sexual frustration aspect of Antinous, who admires the shepherd boys from a distance, but cannot have them in his grasp. Perhaps that, in itself, is another kind of queerness.

A devotional volume for Pan will soon be published by Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and many of the points addressed above are expanded upon in an essay that I hope will be published in it. I shall make a note of when that comes to pass here!

In the words of Aleister Crowley, Io Pan!, and may I add, Khaire Antinoe!