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To spare the reader from having to search through the rambling (yet thoroughly
charming) essay (as Loeb accurately describes it: “Some parts of the essay make
rather difficult reading, but it also contains passages of considerable interest and
even beauty” (Loeb Classical Library
1936
)). I have isolated the sections specifically
describing the death of Pan and the decline of the oracles:
“
it it is not the gods,” said Heracleon, “who are in charge of the oracles, since the gods
ought properly to be freed of earthly concerns; but that it is the demigods, ministers of the
gods, who have them in charge, seems to me not a bad postulate; but to take, practically by
the handful, from the verses of Empedocles sins, rash crimes, and heaven-sent wanderings,
and to impose them upon the demigods, and to assume that their final fate is death, just as
with men, I regard as rather too audacious and uncivilized.”
:::
:::
As for death among such beings, I have heard the words of a man who was not a
fool nor an impostor.
The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses,
who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in
making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers.
It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship
drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their
after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly
calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by
name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time
he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, 'When you come opposite to Palodes,
a announce that Great Pan is dead.' On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded
and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse
to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if
there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth
sea about the place he would announce what he had heard.
So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus
from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: 'Great Pan
is dead.' Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one
person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement. As many persons were
on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by
Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an
inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan; and the scholars, who were numerous at
his court, conjectured that he was the son born of Hermes and Penelopê (Loeb Classical
Library
1936
).
This lays out the basic element of the story related by Burroughs in the opening of
“Apocalypse” except for one crucial detail, the exact date. Further clues are provided
by the Loeb editors:
Students of English literature will be interested in the dramatic description of the announce-
ment of the death of Pan; and students of religion will be interested in the essay as a very
early effort to reconcile science and religion. That the essay had an appeal to theologians
is clear from the generous quotations made from it by Eusebius and Theodoretus (Loeb
Classical Library
1936
).
The particular importance of this section to English literature will be examined
later but working forward to the theologians who quoted from it so heavily we
find one such quotation of this very passage in Eusebius of Caesarea's (a Roman
historian, bishop and Christian polemicist born roughly 260 AD, died roughly
340 AD) “Preparation for the Gospel” which is a series of fifteen topics which he
