Having succeeded to the kingdom of Thebes, Creon cast out the Argive dead unburied, issued a proclamation that none should bury them, and set watchmen. But Antigone, one of the daughters of Oedipus, stole the body of Polynices, and secretly buried it, and having been detected by Creon himself, she was interred alive in the grave.[*](Apollodorus here follows the account of Antigone's heroism and doom as they are described by Sophocles in his noble tragedy, the Antigone. Compare Aesch. Seven 1005ff. A different version of the story is told by Hyginus, Fab. 72. According to him, when Antigone was caught in the act of performing funeral rites for her brother Polynices, Creon handed her over for execution to his son Haemon, to whom she had been betrothed. But Haemon, while he pretended to put her to death, smuggled her out of the way, married her, and had a son by her. In time the son grew up and came to Thebes, where Creon detected him by the bodily mark which all descendants of the Sparti or Dragon-men bore on their bodies. In vain Herakles interceded for Haemon with his angry father. Creon was inexorable; so Haemon killed himself and his wife Antigone. Some have thought that in this narrative Hyginus followed Euripides, who wrote a tragedy Antigone, of which a few fragments survive. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 404ff. ) Adrastus fled to Athens [*](As to the flight of Adrastus to Athens, and the intervention of the Athenians on his behalf see Isoc. 4.54-58; Isoc. 12.168-174; Paus. 1.39.2; Plut. Thes. 29; Statius, Theb. xii.464ff., (who substitutes Argive matrons as suppliants instead of Adrastus). The story is treated by Euripides in his extant play The Suppliants, which, on the whole, Apollodorus follows. But whereas Apollodorus, like Statius, lays the scene of the supplication at the altar of Mercy in Athens, Euripides lays it at the altar of Demeter in Eleusis (Eur. Supp. 1ff.). In favour of the latter version it may be said that the graves of the fallen leaders were shown at Eleusis, near the Flowery Well (Paus. 1.39.1ff.; Plut. Thes. 29); while the graves of the common soldiers were at Eleutherae, which is on the borders of Attica and Boeotia, on the direct road from Eleusis to Thebes (Eur. Supp. 756ff.; Plut. Thes. 29). Tradition varied also on the question how the Athenians obtained the permission of the Thebans to bury the Argive dead. Some said that Theseus led an army to Thebes, defeated the Thebans, and compelled them to give up the dead Argives for burial. This was the version adopted by Euripides, Statius, and Apollodorus. Others said that Theseus sent an embassy and by negotiations obtained the voluntary consent of the Thebans to his carrying off the dead. This version, as the less discreditable to the Thebans, was very naturally adopted by them (Paus. 1.39.2) and by the patriotic Boeotian Plutarch, who expressly rejects Euripides's account of the Theban defeat. Isocrates, with almost incredible fatuity, adopts both versions in different passages of his writings and defends himself for so doing (Isoc. 12.168-174). Lysias, without expressly mentioning the flight of Adrastus to Athens, says that the Athenians first sent heralds to the Thebans with a request for leave to bury the Argive dead, and that when the request was refused, they marched against the Thebans, defeated them in battle, and carrying off the Argive dead buried them at Eleusis. See Lys. 2.7-10.) and took refuge at the altar of
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Mercy,
[*](As to the altar of Mercy at Athens see above Apollod. 2.8.1; Paus. 1.17.1, with my note (vol. ii. pp. 143ff.); Diod. 13.22.7; Statius, Theb. xii.481-505. It is mentioned in a late Greek inscription found at Athens (Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, iii.170; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta 792). The altar, though not mentioned by early writers, was in later times one of the most famous spots in Athens. Philostratus says that the Athenians built an altar of Mercy as the thirteenth of the gods, and that they poured libations on it, not of wine, but of tears (Philostratus, Epist. 39). In this fancy he perhaps copied Statius, Theb. xii.488, “lacrymis altaria sudant”.) and laying on it the suppliant's bough
[*](The branch of olive which a suppliant laid on the altar of a god in token that he sought the divine protection. See Andoc. 1.110ff.; Jebb on Sophocles, OT 3.) he prayed that they would bury the dead. And the Athenians marched with Theseus, captured Thebes, and gave the dead to their kinsfolk to bury. And when the pyre of Capaneus was burning, his wife Evadne, the daughter of Iphis, thew herself on the pyre, and was burned with him.
[*](For the death of Evadne on the pyre of her husband Capaneus, see Eur. Supp. 1034ff.; Zenobius, Cent. i.30; Prop. i.15.21ff.; Ovid, Tristia v.14.38; Ovid, Pont. iii.1.111ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 243; Statius, Theb. xii.800ff., with the note of Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. v. 801; Martial iv.75.5. Capaneus had been killed by a thunderbolt as he was mounting a ladder at the siege of Thebes. See Apollod. 3.6.7. Hence his body was deemed sacred and should have been buried, not burned, and the grave fenced off; whereas the other bodies were all consumed on a single pyre. See Eur. Supp. 934-938, where συμπήξας ta/fon refers to the fencing in of the grave. So the tomb of Semele, who was also killed by lightning, seems to have stood within a sacred enclosure. See Eur. Ba. 6-11. Yet, inconsistently with the foregoing passage, Euripides appears afterwards to assume that the body of Capaneus was burnt on a pyre (Eur. Supp. 1000ff.). The rule that a person killed by a thunderbolt should be buried, not burnt, is stated by Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii.145 and alluded to by Tertullian, Apologeticus 48. An ancient Roman law, attributed to Numa, forbade the celebration of the usual obsequies for a man who had been killed by lightning. See Festus, s.v. “Occisum,” p. 178, ed. C. O. Müller. It is true that these passages refer to the Roman usage, but the words of Eur. Supp. 934-938 seem to imply that the Greek practice was similar, and this is confirmed by Artemidorus, who says that the bodies of persons killed by lightning were not removed but buried on the spot (Artemidorus, Onirocrit. ii.9). The same writer tells us that a man struck by lightning was not deemed to be disgraced, nay, he was honoured as a god; even slaves killed by lightning were approached with respect, as honoured by Zeus, and their dead bodies were wrapt in fine garments. Such customs are to some extent explained by the belief that Zeus himself descended in the flash of lightning; hence whatever the lightning struck was naturally regarded as holy. Places struck by lightning were sacred to Zeus the Descender (Ζεὺς καταιβάτης ) and were enclosed by a fence. Inscriptions marking such spots have been found in various parts of Greece. See Pollux ix.41; Paus. 5.14.10, with (Frazer, Paus. vol. iii. p. 565, vol. v. p. 614). Compare E. Rohde, Psyche(3), i.320ff.; H. Useher, “Keraunos,” Kleine Schriften, iv.477ff., (who quotes from Clemens Romanus and Cyrillus more evidence of the worship of persons killed by lightning); Chr. Blinkenberg, The Thunder-weapon in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge, 1911), pp. 110ff. Among the Ossetes of the Caucasus a man who has been killed by lightning is deemed very lucky, for they believe that he has been taken by St. Elias to himself. So the survivors raise cries of joy and sing and dance about him. His relations think it their duty to join in these dances and rejoicings, for any appearance of sorrow would be regarded as a sin against St. Elias and therefore punishable. The festival lasts eight days. The deceased is dressed in new clothes and laid on a pillow in the exact attitude in which he was struck and in the same place where he died. At the end of the celebrations he is buried with much festivity and feasting, a high cairn is erected on his grave, and beside it they set up a tall pole with the skin of a black he-goat attached to it, and another pole, on which hang the best clothes of the deceased. The grave becomes a place of pilgrimage. See Julius von Klaproth, Reise in den Kaukasus und nach Georgien (Halle and Berlin, 1814), ii.606; A. von Haxthausen, Transkaukasia (Leipsig, 1856), ii.21ff. Similarly the Kafirs of South Africa “have strange notions respecting the lightning. They consider that it is governed by the umshologu, or ghost, of the greatest and most renowned of their departed chiefs, and who is emphatically styled the inkosi; but they are not at all clear as to which of their ancestors is intended by this designation. Hence they allow of no lamentation being made for a person killed by lightning, as they say that it would be a sign of disloyalty to lament for one whom the inkosi had sent for, and whose services he consequently needed; and it would cause him to punish them, by making the lightning again to descend and do them another injury.” Further, rites of purification have to be performed by a priest at the kraal where the accident took place; and till these have been performed, none of the inhabitants may leave the kraal or have intercourse with other people. Meantime their heads are shaved and they must abstain from drinking milk. The rites include a sacrifice and the inoculation of the people with powdered charcoal. See “Mr. Warner's Notes,” in Col. Maclean's Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Cape Town, 1866), pp. 82-84. Sometimes, however, the ghosts of persons who have been killed by lightning are deemed to be dangerous. Hence the Omahas used to slit the soles of the feet of such corpses to prevent their ghosts from walking about. See J. Owen Dorsey, “A Study of Siouan Cults,” Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1894), p. 420. For more evidence of special treatment accorded to the bodies of persons struck dead by lightning, see A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (London, 1890), p. 39ff.; A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (London, 1894), p. 49; Rev. J. H. Weeks, “Notes on some customs of the Lower Congo people,” Folk-Lore, xx. (1909), p. 475; Rendel Harris, Boanerges (Cambridge, 1913), p. 97; A. L. Kitching, On the backwaters of the Nile (London, 1912), pp. 264ff. Among the Barundi of Central Africa, a man or woman who has been struck, but not killed, by lightning becomes thereby a priest or priestess of the god Kiranga, whose name he or she henceforth bears and of whom he or she is deemed a bodily representative. And any place that has been struck by lightning is enclosed, and the trunk of a banana-tree or a young fig-tree is set up in it to serve as the temporary abode of the deity who manifested himself in the lightning. See H. Meyer, Die Barundi (Leipsig, 1916), pp. 123, 135.) 377
Ten years afterwards the sons of the fallen, called the Epigoni, purposed to march against Thebes to
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avenge the death of their fathers;
[*](The war of the Epigoni against Thebes is narrated very similarly by Diod. 4.66. Compare Paus. 9.5.10ff., Paus. 9.8.6, Paus. 9.9.4ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 70. There was an epic poem on the subject, called Epigoni, which some people ascribed to Homer (Hdt. 4.32; Biographi Graeci, ed. A. Westermann, pp. 42ff.), but others attributed it to Antimachus (Scholiast on Aristoph. Peace 1270). Compare Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 13ff. Aeschylus and Sophocles both wrote tragedies on the same subject and with the same title, Epigoni. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 19, 173ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, i.129ff. ) and when they consulted the oracle, the god predicted victory under the leadership of Alcmaeon. So Alcmaeon joined the expedition, though he was loath to lead the army till he had punished his mother; for Eriphyle had received the robe from Thersander, son of Polynices, and had persuaded her sons also
[*](The sons of Eriphyle were Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, as we learn immediately. The giddy and treacherous mother persuaded them, as she had formerly persuaded her husband Amphiaraus, to go to the war, the bauble of a necklace and the gewgaw of a robe being more precious in her sight than the lives of her kinsfolk. See above, Apollod. 3.6.2; and as to the necklace and robe, see Apollod. 3.4.2; Apollod. 3.6.1-2; Diod. 4.66.3.) to go to the war. Having chosen Alcmaeon as their leader, they made war on Thebes. The men who took part in the expedition were these: Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, sons of Amphiaraus; Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Diomedes, son of Tydeus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Thersander, son of Polynices; and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus.
They first laid waste the surrounding villages; then, when the Thebans advanced against them, led
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by Laodamas, son of Eteocles, they fought bravely,
[*](The battle was fought at a place called Glisas, where the graves of the Argive lords were shown down to the time of Pausanias. See Paus. 9.5.13; Paus. 9.8.6; Paus. 9.9.4; Paus. 9.19.2; Scholiast on Pind. P. 8.48(68), who refers to Hellanicus as his authority.) and though Laodamas killed Aegialeus, he was himself killed by Alcmaeon,
[*](According to a different account, King Laodamas did not fall in the battle, but after his defeat led a portion of the Thebans away to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, the same people among whom his ancestors Cadmus and Harmonia had found their last home. See Hdt. 5.61; Paus. 9.5.13; Paus. 9.8.6. As to Cadmus and Harmonia in Illyria, see above, Apollod. 3.5.4.) and after his death the Thebans fled in a body within the walls. But as Tiresias told them to send a herald to treat with the Argives, and themselves to take to flight, they did send a herald to the enemy, and, mounting their children and women on the wagons, themselves fled from the city. When they had come by night to the spring called Tilphussa, Tiresias drank of it and expired.
[*](See Paus. 9.33.1, who says that the grave of Tiresias was at the spring. But there was also a cenotaph of the seer on the road from Thebes to Chalcis (Paus. 9.18.4). Diod. 4.67.1 agrees with Pausanias and Apollodorus in placing the death of Tiresias at Mount Tilphusium, which was beside the spring Tilphussa, in the territory of Haliartus.) After travelling far the Thebans built the city of Hestiaea and took up their abode there.
But the Argives, on learning afterwards the flight of the Thebans, entered the city and collected the booty, and pulled down the walls. But they sent a portion of the booty to Apollo at Delphi and with it Manto, daughter of Tiresias; for they had vowed that, if they took Thebes, they would dedicate to him the fairest of the spoils.[*](Compare Diod. 4.66.6 (who gives the name of Tiresias's daughter as Daphne, not Manto); Paus. 7.3.3; Paus. 9.33.2; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.308.)
After the capture of Thebes, when Alcmaeon learned that his mother Eriphyle had been bribed
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to his undoing also,
[*](That is, as well as to the undoing of his father Amphiaraus. See above, Apollod. 3.6.2.) he was more incensed than ever, and in accordance with an oracle given to him by Apollo he killed his mother.
[*](Compare Thuc. 2.102.7ff.; Diod. 4.65.7; Paus. 8.24.7ff.; Ov. Met. 9.407ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 73. Sophocles and Euripides both wrote tragedies called Alcmaeon, or rather Alcmeon, for that appears to be the more correct spelling of the name. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 153ff., 379ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 68ff. ) Some say that he killed her in conjunction with his brother Amphilochus, others that he did it alone. But Alcmaeon was visited by the Fury of his mother's murder, and going mad he first repaired to Oicles
[*](Oicles was the father of Amphiaraus, and therefore the grandfather of Alcmaeon. See Apollod. 1.8.2.) in Arcadia, and thence to Phegeus at Psophis. And having been purified by him he married Arsinoe, daughter of Phegeus,
[*](Paus. 8.24.8 and Prop. i.15.19 call her Alphesiboea.) and gave her the necklace and the robe. But afterwards the ground became barren on his account,
[*](So Greece is said to have been afflicted with a dearth on account of a treacherous murder committed by Pelops. See below, Apollod. 3.12.6. Similarly the land of Thebes was supposed to be visited with barrenness of the soil, of cattle, and of women because of the presence of Oedipus, who had slain his father and married his mother. See Soph. OT 22ff.; Soph. OT 96ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 67. The notion that the shedding of blood, especially the blood of a kinsman, is an offence to the earth, which consequently refuses to bear crops, seems to have been held by the ancient Hebrews, as it is still apparently held by some African peoples. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.82ff. ) and the god bade him in an oracle to depart to Achelous and to stand another trial on the river bank.
[*](The text is here uncertain. See the Critical Note.) At first he repaired to Oeneus at Calydon and was entertained by him; then he went to the Thesprotians, but was driven away from the country; and finally he went to the springs of Achelous, and was purified by him,
[*](Achelous here seems to be conceived partly as a river and partly as a man, or rather a god.) and
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received Callirrhoe, his daughter, to wife. Moreover he colonized the land which the Achelous had formed by its silt, and he took up his abode there.
[*](Compare Thuc. 2.102.7ff.; Paus. 8.24.8ff. As to the formation of new land by the deposit of alluvial soil at the mouth of the Achelous, compare Hdt. 2.10.) But afterwards Callirrhoe coveted the necklace and robe, and said she would not live with him if she did not get them. So away Alcmaeon hied to Psophis and told Phegeus how it had been predicted that he should be rid of his madness when he had brought the necklace and the robe to Delphi and dedicated them.
[*](According to Ephorus, or his son Demophilus, this oracle was really given to Alcmaeon at Delphi. See Athenaeus vi.22, p. 232 DF, where the words of the oracle are quoted.) Phegeus believed him and gave them to him. But a servant having let out that he was taking the things to Callirrhoe, Phegeus commanded his sons, and they lay in wait and killed him.
[*](His grave was overshadowed by tall cypresses, called the Maidens, in the bleak upland valley of Psophis. See Paus. 8.24.7. A quiet resting-place for the matricide among the solemn Arcadian mountains after the long fever of the brain and the long weary wanderings. The valley, which I have visited, somewhat resembles a Yorkshire dale, but is far wilder and more solitary.) When Arsinoe upbraided them, the sons of Phegeus clapped her into a chest and carried her to Tegea and gave her as a slave to Agapenor, falsely accusing her of Alcmaeon's murder.
Being apprized of Alcmaeon's untimely end and courted by Zeus, Callirrhoe requested that the sons she had by Alcmaeon might be full grown in order to avenge their father's murder. And being suddenly full-grown, the sons went forth to right their father's wrong.[*](Compare Ov. Met. 9.413ff. ) Now Pronous and Agenor, the sons of Phegeus,[*](Paus. 8.24.10 calls them Temenus and Axion.) carrying the necklace and robe to Delphi to dedicate them, turned in at the house of Agapenor at the same time as Amphoterus and
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Acarnan, the sons of Alcmaeon; and the sons of Alcmaeon killed their father's murderers, and going to Psophis and entering the palace they slew both Phegeus and his wife. They were pursued as far as Tegea, but saved by the intervention of the Tegeans and some Argives, and the Psophidians took to flight.
Having acquainted their mother with these things, they went to Delphi and dedicated the necklace and robe[*](According to Paus. 8.24.10; Paus. 9.41.2, it was the sons of Phegeus, not the sons of Alcmaeon, who dedicated the necklace at Delphi. The necklace, or what passed for it, was preserved at Delphi in the sanctuary of Forethought Athena as late as the Sacred War in the fourth century B.C., when it was carried off, with much more of the sacred treasures, by the unscrupulous Phocian leader, Phayllus. See Parthenius, Narrat. 25 (who quotes Phylarchus as his authority); Athenaeus vi.22, p. 232 DE (who quotes the thirtieth book of the history of Ephorus as his authority).) according to the injunction of Achelous. Then they journeyed to Epirus, collected settlers, and colonized Acarnania.[*](Compare Thuc. 2.102.9; Paus. 8.24.9, who similarly derive the name of Acarnania from Acarnan, son of Alcmaeon. Pausanias says that formerly the people were called Curetes.) But Euripides says[*](The reference is no doubt to one of the two lost tragedies which Euripides composed under the title Alcmaeon. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 479ff. ) that in the time of his madness Alcmaeon begat two children, Amphilochus and a daughter Tisiphone, by Manto, daughter of Tiresias, and that he brought the babes to Corinth and gave them to Creon, king of Corinth, to bring up; and that on account of her extraordinary comeliness Tisiphone was sold as a slave by Creon's spouse, who feared that Creon might make her his wedded wife. But Alcmaeon bought her and kept her as a handmaid, not knowing that she was his daughter, and coming to Corinth to get back his children he recovered his son also. And Amphilochus colonized
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Amphilochian Argos in obedience to oracles of Apollo.
[*](Amphilochian Argos was a city of Aetolia, situated on the Ambracian Gulf. See Thuc. 2.68.3, who represents the founder Amphilochus as the son of Amphiaraus, and therefore as the brother, not the son, of Alcmaeon. As to Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, see above, Apollod. 3.7.2.) Let us now return to Pelasgus, who, Acusilaus says, was a son of Zeus and Niobe, as we have supposed,[*](See above, Apollod. 2.1.1.) but Hesiod declares him to have been a son of the soil. He had a son Lycaon[*](The following passage about Lycaon and his sons, down to and including the notice of Deucalion's flood, is copied, to a great extent verbally, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 481), who mentions Apollodorus by name as his authority. For another and different list of Lycaon's sons, see Paus. 8.3.1ff., who calls Nyctimus the eldest son of Lycaon, whereas Apollodorus calls him the youngest (see below). That the wife of Pelasgus and mother of Lycaon was Cyllene is affirmed by the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645.) by Meliboea, daughter of Ocean or, as others say, by a nymph Cyllene; and Lycaon, reigning over the Arcadians, begat by many wives fifty sons, to wit: Melaeneus, Thesprotus, Helix, Nyctimus, Peucetius, Caucon, Mecisteus, Hopleus, Macareus, Macednus, Horus, Polichus, Acontes, Evaemon, Ancyor, Archebates, Carteron, Aegaeon, Pallas, Eumon, Canethus, Prothous, Linus, Coretho, Maenalus, Teleboas, Physius, Phassus, Phthius, Lycius, Halipherus, Genetor, Bucolion, Socleus, Phineus, Eumetes, Harpaleus, Portheus, Plato, Haemo, Cynaethus, Leo, Harpalycus, Heraeeus, Titanas, Mantineus, Clitor, Stymphalus, Orchomenus, --- These exceeded all men in pride
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and impiety; and Zeus, desirous of putting their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a day-laborer. They offered him hospitality and having slaughtered a male child of the natives, they mixed his bowels with the sacrifices, and set them before him, at the instigation of the elder brother Maenalus.
[*](With this and what follows compare Nicolaus Damascenus, Frag. 43 (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii.378; Suidas, s.v. Λυκάων ): “Lycaon, son of Pelasgus and king of Arcadia, maintained his father's institutions in righteousness. And wishing like his father to wean his subjects from unrighteousness he said that Zeus constantly visited him in the likeness of a stranger to view the righteous and the unrighteous. And once, as he himself said, being about to receive the god, he offered a sacrifice. But of his fifty sons, whom he had, as they say, by many women, there were some present at the sacrifice, and wishing to know if they were about to give hospitality to a real god, they sacrificed a child and mixed his flesh with that of the victim, in the belief that their deed would be discovered if the visitor was a god indeed. But they say that the deity caused great storms to burst and lightnings to flash, and that all the murderers of the child perished.” A similar version of the story is reported by Hyginus, Fab. 176, who adds that Zeus in his wrath upset the table, killed the sons of Lycaon with a thunderbolt, and turned Lycaon himself into a wolf. According to this version of the legend, which Apollodorus apparently accepted, Lycaon was a righteous king, who ruled wisely like his father Pelasgus before him (see Paus. 8.1.4-6), but his virtuous efforts to benefit his subjects were frustrated by the wickedness and impiety of his sons, who by exciting the divine anger drew down destruction on themselves and on their virtuous parent, and even imperilled the existence of mankind in the great flood. But according to another, and perhaps more generally received, tradition, it was King Lycaon himself who tempted his divine guest by killing and dishing up to him at table a human being; and, according to some, the victim was no other than the king's own son Nyctimus. See Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.36, p. 31, ed. Potter; Nonnus, Dionys. xviii.20ff.; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes iv.24. Some, however, said that the victim was not the king's son, but his grandson Arcas, the son of his daughter Callisto by Zeus. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 8; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 387 (in Martianus Capella, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt). According to Ov. Met. 1.218ff., the victim was a Molossian hostage. Others said simply that Lycaon set human flesh before the deity. See Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. xi.128; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i.5 (First Vatican Mythographer 17). For this crime Zeus changed the wicked king into a wolf, according to Hyginus, Ovid, the Scholiast on Caesar Germanicus, and the First Vatican Mythographer; but, on the other hand, Clement of Alexandria, Nonnus, Eratosthenes, and Arnobius say nothing of such a transformation. The upsetting of the table by the indignant deity is recorded by Eratosthenes, Cat. 8 as well as by Hyginus, Ast. ii.4 and Apollodorus. A somewhat different account of the tragical occurrence is given by Pausanias, who says (Paus. 8.2.3) that Lycaon brought a human babe to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, after which he was immediately turned into a wolf. These traditions were told to explain the savage and cruel rites which appear to have been performed in honour of Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus down to the second century of our era or later. It seems that a human victim was sacrificed, and that his inward parts (σπλάγχνον), mixed with that of animal victims, was partaken of at a sort of cannibal banquet by the worshippers, of whom he who chanced to taste of the human flesh was believed to be changed into a wolf and to continue in that shape for eight years, but to recover his human form in the ninth year, if in the meantime he had abstained from eating human flesh. See Plat. Rep. 8.565d-e; Paus. 8.2.6. According to another account, reported by Varro on the authority of a Greek writer Euanthes, the werewolf was chosen by lot, hung his clothes on an oak tree, swam across a pool, and was then transformed into a wolf and herded with wolves for nine years, afterwards recovering his human shape if in the interval he had not tasted the flesh of man. In this account there is no mention of cannibalism. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.81; Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. A certain Arcadian boxer, named Damarchus, son of Dinnytas, who won a victory at Olympia, is said to have been thus transformed into a wolf at the sacrifice of Lycaean Zeus and to have been changed back into a man in the tenth year afterwards. Of the historical reality of the boxer there can be no reasonable doubt, for his statue existed in the sacred precinct at Olympia, where it was seen by Pausanias; but in the inscription on it, which Pausanias copied, there was no mention made of the man's transformation into a wolf. See Paus. 6.8.2. However, the transformation was recorded by a Greek writer, Scopas, in his history of Olympic victors, who called the boxer Demaenatus, and said that his change of shape was caused by his partaking of the inward parts of a boy slain in the Arcadian sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus. Scopas also spoke of the restoration of the boxer to the human form in the tenth year, and mentioned that his victory in boxing at Olympia was subsequent to his experiences as a wolf. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.82; Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. The continuance of human sacrifice in the rites of Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus is hinted at by Paus. 8.38.7 in the second century of our era, and asserted by Porphyry, (De abstinentia ii.27: Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelii, iv.16.6) in the third century. From these fragmentary notices it is hardly possible to piece together a connected account of the rite; but the mention of the transformation of the cannibal into a wolf for eight or nine years suggests that the awful sacrifice was offered at intervals either of eight or of nine years. If the interval was eight years, it would point to the use of that eight years' cycle which played so important a part in the ancient calendar of the Greeks, and by which there is reason to think that the tenure of the kingship was in some places regulated. Perhaps the man who was supposed to be turned into a wolf acted as the priest, or even as the incarnation, of the Wolf God for eight or nine years till he was relieved of his office at the next celebration of the rites. The subject has been learnedly discussed by A. B. Cook (Zeus, i.63-99);. He regards Lycaean Zeus as a god of light rather than of wolves, and for this view there is much to be said. See Frazer on Paus. 8.38.7 (vol. iv. pp. 385ff.). The view would be confirmed if we were sure that the solemn sacrifice was octennial, for the octennial period was introduced in order to reconcile solar and lunar time, and hence the religious rites connected with it would naturally have reference to the great celestial luminaries. As to the octennial period, see the note on Apollod. 2.5.11. But with this view of the festival it is difficult to reconcile the part played by wolves in the myth and ritual. We can hardly suppose with some late Greek writers, that the ancient Greek word for a year, λυκάβας, was derived from λύκος, “a wolf,” and βαίνω, “to walk.” See Ael., Nat. Anim. x.26; Artemidorus, Onirocrit. ii.12; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xiv.161, p. 1756.) But Zeus in disgust upset the
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table at the place which is still called Trapezus,
[*](As to the town of Trapezus, see Paus. 8.3.3; Paus. 8.5.4; Paus. 8.27.4-6; Paus. 8.29.1; Paus. 8.31.5. The name is derived by Apollodorus from the Greek τράπεζα, “a table.” Compare Eratosthenes, Cat. 8.) and blasted Lycaon and his sons by thunderbolts, all but Nyctimus, the youngest; for Earth was quick enough
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to lay hold of the right hand of Zeus and so appease his wrath.