Scholars believe that Lycaon’s name is derived from lykos, the Greek for “wolf’’Wolves in Greek stories are typically hungry for human flesh, and Lycaon’s story includes themes of cannibalism and lycanthropy—the transformation of humans into wolves. Zeus was entertained by Lycaon at a feast during which someone—either Lycaon himself or one of his 50 sons—served Zeus the flesh of a young boy Zeus kicked over the table (the regular response in myth to a cannibalistic meal) and struck the household with lightning, killing all the sons. Lycaon himself was turned into a wolf. In some versions of the story, Lycaon’s crime provoked Zeus to destroy the entire human race with a great flood, of which the only survivors were Deucalion and Pyrrha.
The child butchered at Lycaon’s feast is variously identified. In some stories he is an anonymous waif, in others he is Lycaon’s son Nyctimus; in at least one version he is Lycaon’s grandson Arcas, whom Zeus later restored to life so that he could become the collective ancestor of the Arcadian people, who bear his name. Arcas’s name seems related to arktos or arkos, the Greek for “bear”; Arcas’s mother, Callisto, Lycaon’s daughter, was turned into a bear. The Arcadians thus appear to originate from a wolf and a bear—further confirmation of their closeness to animals.
These themes reappear in the rituals that were said to have been held by the Arcadians on Mount Lycaon in honor of Zeus. In one, for example, a sacrificial meal was prepared of animal entrails stewed in a pot. A single piece of human flesh was included, and the worshiper who ate it was turned into a wolf for eight or nine years, at the end of which, if he had abstained from further cannibalism throughout the intervening period, he would be restored to human form. This story was related by Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428-c. 348 BCE), who clearly believed that the transformation was imaginary. He was probably right to think that the cannibalism was imaginary as well—modern archaeologists who have studied the sacrificial residue on Mount Lycaon have found no trace of human remains. While it is certain that some sort of ritual was conducted in this sanctuary, it seems that the widely circulated account of what took place there was substantially different from what really went on. It is more likely that the ceremonies symbolized cannibalism but did not actually involve it. One possibility is that rituals were performed in which the participants dressed as wolves and pretended to eat human flesh.
Whatever the truth of these stories of cannibalism and lycanthropy, they tell us something about the meaning of the ritual. It is probably significant that, in several tellings of the story, those who served Zeus human flesh did so in order to test whether he was really a god. A god, it seems, could tell the difference between humans and animals, but
Right: This engraving by French painter Bernard Picart (1673—1733) depicts the transformation of Lycaon into a wolf
LYCAON
Above: The modern remains of the walls of Messene. This ancient city of the southwestern Peloponnese was originally part of Arcadia.
Humans could not. Humans avoid eating each other not naturally but through obedience to an externally imposed cultural rule—abstinence is learned behavior. The Lycaon story and the ritual that commemorated it help to account for the separation of gods from humans. The moral seems to be that, if humans are to survive, they must be careful to restrain their animal nature.
Lycaon had one daughter, Callisto, who became a nymph of Artemis but was raped by Zeus. In some versions of the legend, Lycaon served Zeus human flesh as an act of revenge for the violation of his daughter. This rape resulted in Callisto’s transformation into a bear. The child of the union was a boy named Arcas. When he grew up, he came upon his mother while hunting and (without recognizing who she was) pursued her. She fled into a sacred sanctuary of Zeus and was about to be killed when Zeus took pity on her and placed her among the stars as the Great Bear constellation, Ursa Major. Zeus also carried Arcas to the stars, making him the star Arcturus or “bear guardian” so that he followed his mother across the night sky. In this story, the transformation into an animal is linked with the violation of a sacred space (like cannibalism, something taboo), and with immortality.
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