<P> The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship . Arcadia was a district of mountain people, culturally separated from other Greeks . Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase . </P> <P> Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens . These are often referred to as the Cave of Pan . The only exceptions are the Temple of Pan on the Neda River gorge in the southwestern Peloponnese--the ruins of which survive to this day--and the Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in ancient Egypt . In the 4th century BCE Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion . </P> <P> The parentage of Pan is unclear; generally he is the son of Hermes, although occasionally in some myths he is the son of Zeus, or Dionysus, with whom his mother is said to be a wood nymph, sometimes Dryope or, even in the 5th - century AD source Dionysiaca by Nonnus (14.92), Penelope of Mantineia in Arcadia . In some early sources such as Pindar, his father is Apollo via Penelope, the wife of Odysseus . Herodotus (2.145), Cicero (ND 3.22. 56), Apollodorus (7.38) and Hyginus (Fabulae 224) all make Hermes and Penelope his parents . Pausanias 8.12. 5 records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, who banished her to Mantineia upon his return . Other sources (Duris of Samos; the Vergilian commentator Servius) report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus' absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result . This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pan's name (Πάν) with the Greek word for "all" (πᾶν). </P> <P> In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is made cognate with Phanes / Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros . </P>

Who is often named the father of pan