Lycaon

Zeus arrived in Arcadia disguised as a poor traveller. Lycaon and his sons received him, though they had become notorious for arrogance and impiety. Lycaon had civilised Arcadia and established the worship of Zeus Lycaeus, but his conduct towards the god was irreverent. Some accounts say that Lycaon’s sons had heard that Zeus visited human communities to inspect their behaviour, and decided to test whether their guest was truly divine.

They prepared a meal of sheep and goat entrails, mixing human flesh into the dish. The victim was Nyctimus, one of Lycaon’s sons. Zeus recognised what had been served to him and rejected the banquet. He overturned the table, and the place was later called Trapezus. He punished Lycaon’s sons by changing them into wolves, except for Nyctimus, whom he restored to life. Lycaon himself was transformed into a wolf. In some accounts, his house was also struck by lightning.

The outrage was linked with Deucalion’s Flood, which Zeus sent because of the crimes of Lycaon’s sons. Other traditions preserve a later form of the Arcadian rite, in which a boy’s flesh was mixed with an umble soup and served to shepherds beside a stream. The man who received and ate the boy’s flesh was said to become a wolf, though he could regain human form after eight years if he had not eaten human beings. Damarchus, a Parrhasian, was said to have passed through this ordeal, returned to human form, and later won the boxing prize at the Olympic Games.