Lycaon (king of Arcadia)

For other uses, see Lycaon (Greek myth).
Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf; engraving by Hendrik Goltzius.

In Greek mythology, Lycaon (/laɪˈkeɪɒn/; Attic Greek: Λυκάων, romanized: Lukáо̄n, 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.

Despite being notorious for his horrific deeds, 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.[1] According to Gaius Julius Hyginus (d. AD 17), Lycaon dedicated the first temple to Hermes of Cyllene.[2]

  1. ^ Pausanias, 8.2.1
  2. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 225