'Great Pan Is Dead'
Sailing past a Greek island, a ship's pilot heard a voice from the shore call his name and tell him to announce that Great Pan was dead.
What was reported
The Greek writer Plutarch tells of a ship sailing to Italy that drifted near the islands of Paxi. A voice called from the shore to the Egyptian pilot, Thamus, by name, three times, and told him that when he reached the next landmark he should announce that 'Great Pan is dead'.
When they came to the place, Thamus shouted the message towards the land, and a great sound of lamentation rose up, of many voices, as if in grief. The story reached Rome, and the emperor Tiberius is said to have had it investigated.
Explanations offered
Plutarch tells it as a story he heard second-hand. Some scholars think it began with a misunderstanding of a ritual lament for a god, or of the pilot's name. Later Christian writers took it as a sign that the old gods had died with the coming of Christ.
- When
- Said to be the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37)
- Where
- Off the island of Paxos, Greece
- Witnesses
- A ship's crew, as told by Plutarch
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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