[381] Great Pan himself must bless them. Pan, son of Hermes and a daughter of Dryops, or of Zeus and the Arcadian nymph Callisto, etc., etc., is a divinity of the fields and forests. Cneius Afranius here uses the adjective “great” in the sense of “powerful,” "influential,"—corresponding with the hyperbolical tone of the rest of his speech. The totally different expression, “the great Pan,” in the sense of a symbolical appellation of the universe, originates in a verbal error, according to which the word Pan is derived from the Greek πᾶς “all” "the whole" while it really comes from πάω (I graze.)
[382] My sweet Erotion. A child of this name, who died in early youth, is mentioned by Martial, Ep. V, 34, 37, and X, 61.
Ep. V, 34.
“Ye parents Fronto and Flaccilla here,
To you do I commend my girl, my dear,
Lest pale Erotion tremble at the shades,
And the foul Dog of Hell’s prodigious heads.
Her age fulfilling just six winters was,
Had she but known so many days to pass.
’Mongst you, old patrons, may she sport and play,