In Greek mythology, Lycaon (; Attic Greek: Λυκάων, romanized: Lukáōn, Attic Greek: [ly.kǎː.ɔːn]) was a king of Arcadia who, in the most popular version of the myth, killed and cooked his son Nyctimus and served him to Zeus, to see whether the god was sufficiently all-knowing to recognize human flesh. Disgusted, Zeus transformed Lycaon into a wolf, while Nyctimus was restored to life.
Though notorious for his horrific deed, Lycaon was also remembered as a culture hero. He was believed to have founded the city Lycosura, to have established a cult of Zeus Lycaeus and to have started the tradition of the Lycaean Games, which Pausanias thinks were older than the Panathenaic Games. According to Gaius Julius Hyginus (d. AD 17), Lycaon dedicated the first temple to Hermes of Cyllene.
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Family
Lycaon was the son of Pelasgus and either the Oceanid Meliboea or Deianira, daughter of an elder Lycaon. His wife was called Cyllene, an Oread nymph who gave her name to Mount Cyllenê though sometimes she was regarded as his mother instead. Other accounts give the name of his wife as Nonacris, after whom an Arcadian town may have been named. Lycaon was also known to have had at least three daughters: Callisto, Dia, and Psophis.
Sons of Lycaon
According to the Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus), Lycaon has 50 sons. An alternate list of Lycaon's sons is given by Pausanias. According to his account, almost each of them founded a city in Arcadia and became its eponym.
Mythology
There are several versions of the Lycaon myth already reported by Hesiod (Fragmenta astronomica, by Eratosthenes, Catasterismi), told by several authors. The most popular version is the one reported by Ovid in the first book of his Metamorphoses.
The different versions of the myth are as follows:
According to the Bibliotheca, Lycaon had sired 50 sons with many wives. These sons were the most nefarious and carefree of all people. To test them, Zeus visited them in the form of a peasant. They mixed the entrails of a child into the god's meal, whereupon the enraged Zeus threw the meal over the table, which explains the name of the city Trapezus (from τραπέζι, table), and killed Lycaon and his sons with lightning. Only the youngest son, Nyctimus, was saved due to the intervention of Gaia.
John Tzetzes records two similar versions which agree with Apollodorus's account; one mentions that the idea to serve Zeus a slaughtered child belonged to Maenalus, one of Lycaon's sons, while the other makes Nyctimus the victim.
According to Pausanias, Lycaon was instantly transformed into a wolf after sacrificing a child on the altar of Zeus and sprinkling the blood on the altar.
According to Lycophron, all were transformed into wolves for having devoured Nyctimus. Lycophron extends the characteristics of Lycaon and his sons onto all the Arcadians.
The version recounted in the Fabulae is basically the same as that of Pseudo-Apollodorus. De astronomia describes the victim of Lycaon as being Arcas, son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon. Restored to life, Arcas was brought up to be a hunter. His mother was subsequently transformed into a bear, whom Arcas pursued without realizing her true identity; they strayed into a temple where entrance was punished by death. Zeus saved them both by turning them into the constellations Arctophylax and Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Both these works are attributed to different authors named Hyginus; whether one of them was Gaius Julius Hyginus is disputed.