This happens in army camps, when all of a sudden the horses and the men are startled, for no apparent reason.
Women used to celebrate customary rites for Pan by shouting. And Menander in Dyskolos [says]: "one must not approach this god in silence."[1]
Or because they attributed to Pan things [that happen] for no reason; for example, the enemy seems to attack; and [the soldiers] pick up their weapons in the commotion, form ranks, and attack one another.
In the Epigrams: "Charikles on the headland dedicated this tawny hairy goat that has just grown a beard to crag-loving Pan."[2]
This happens during war, as Theodoros the Rhodian general says in his memoirs: "at such times it is best to stay by the weapons and keep calm"; and he himself would run around shouting and giving the order through his servants that everyone was to stay in their tents fully armed.[3]
And [there is a] proverb.[4]