Lycaon (mythology)

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For the son of Priam, see Lycaon (son of Priam).

For the species Lycaon pictus, see African Hunting Dog.

Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf, engraving by Hendrik Goltzius.

Lycaon was the son of Pelasgus and Meliboea (or of oread nymph Cyllene), father of Oenotrus and the mythical first king of Arcadia. He was the father of Callisto and, according to some, he raised her son Arcas. He, and his fifty impious sons, entertained Zeus and set before him a dish of human flesh; the god pushed away the dish in disgust and either killed the king and his sons by lightning or turned them into wolves.^[1] Some say that Lycaon slew and dished up his own son Nyctimus or Arcas, Zeus' son.^[2]

Pausanias^[3] says that Lycaon sacrificed a child (possibly Arcas or Nyctimus) to Zeus on the altar on mount Lycaeus, and immediately after the sacrifice was turned into a wolf. This gave rise to the story that a man was turned into a wolf at each annual sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus, but recovered his human form if he abstained from human flesh for ten years. The oldest city, the oldest cult (that of Zeus Lycaeus), and the first civilization of Arcadia are attributed to Lycaon. His story has been variously interpreted. According to Weizsäcker, he was an old Pelasgian or pre-Hellenic god, to whom human sacrifice was offered, bearing a non-Hellenic name similar to Avkos, whence the story originated of his metamorphosis into a wolf.

His cult was driven out by that of the Hellenic Zeus, and Lycaon himself was afterwards represented as an evil spirit, who had insulted the new deity by setting human flesh before him. Robertson Smith considers the sacrifices offered to the wolf-Zeus in Arcadia to have been originally cannibal feasts of a wolf-tribe, who recognized the wolf as their totem. Hermann Usener and others identify Lycaon with Zeus Lycaeus, the god of light, who slays his son Nyctimus (the dark) or is succeeded by him, in allusion to the perpetual succession of night and day.

According to Ed. Meyer, the belief that Zeus Lycaeus accepted human sacrifice in the form of a wolf was the origin of the myth that Lycaon, the founder of his cult, became a wolf, i.e. participated in the nature of the god by the act of sacrifice, as did all who afterwards duly performed it.

According to the Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus), (3.96), the 50 sons of Lycaon were:

1.Melaeneus 2.Thesprotus 3.Helix 4.Nyctimus 5.Peucetius 6.Caucon 7.Mecisteus 8.Hopleus 9.Macareus 10.Macednus 11.Oenotrus 12.Polichus 13.Acontes 14.Euaemon 15.Ancyor 16.Archebates 17.Carteron 18.Aegaeon 19.Pallas 20.Eumon 21.Canethus 22.Prothous 23.Linus 24.Corethon 25.Maenalus 26.Teleboas 27.Physius 28.Phassus 29.Phthius 30.Lycius 31.Alipherus 32.Genetor 33.Bucolion 34.Socleus 35.Phineus 36.Eumetes 37.Harpaleus 38.Portheus 39.Plato 40.Haemon 41.Cynaethus 42.Leo(n) 43.Harpalycus 44.Heraeeus 45.Titan 47.Mantineus 48.Cleitor 49.Stymphalus 50.Orchomenus