+772+. Hermes, to judge from his history, was the creation of some pastoral community, an ideal of rustic excellence: fleet of foot, a leader in popular amusements, skilled in simple music, eminent in an art much valued in early times--the art of stealing cattle. When he was taken into the circle of Greek theological thought his swiftness recommended him to the position of messenger of the gods,[1326] and his function as psychopompos, the guide of souls to the other world, would then follow naturally; from this function it cannot, however, be inferred that he was originally a chthonic deity--a character that does not accord with the early portraitures of him. Like other gods he grew morally, but he never reached ethical distinction. Skill in theft was in early times often regarded as a virtue,[1327] and in general he who got the better of his fellows was esteemed a master of good luck and prosperity; and a bestower of outward prosperity Hermes came to be.[1328] His main quality was cleverness, in contrast with the intellectual power of Apollo. +773+. On the other hand, another rustic figure, the Arcadian herd-god Pan,[1329] never developed into a great Hellenic god. His worship was widely diffused; he appears often in artistic representations, and Pindar thought him worthy of a hymn (of which, unfortunately, only fragments survive), but in general he remained uncouth and half savage, a goatlike figure, the companion of satyrs, or (as the Homeric hymn depicts him) a merrymaker. He seems to have been an embodiment of the lower rustic pleasures, a local god, probably not a divinized goat.[1330] +774+. His name, however, taken to mean 'all,' gave occasion to fanciful interpretations. He was so called, it was said, because he gave delight to all the Immortals;[1331] or his person and his musical and other instruments were supposed to represent universal nature--his horns the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon, his spotted fawnskin the stars, his pipe of seven reeds the harmony of the heavens, his crook the year, which returns on itself, and so on.[1332] The Stoics and the Orphic writers made him Universal God, the creator of the world.[1333] In the popular cult, however, he remained the merry patron of herds. The most satisfactory explanation of his name is that which derives it from the stem _pa_, 'feed'--he is then "the goatherd."[1334] The story told by Plutarch, of a voice heard crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil, disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan respectfully and sympathetically, but such constructions are nonpopular.[1336]