Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

72 Human sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios

Pliny
nat. hist. 8. 81—82.

other wolves of the same
sort. If during this time
'he has abstained from
attacking men, he returns
to the same pool and,
having swum across it,
gets back his shape look-
ing nine years older than
before. The story adds
that he resumes the same
clothing. The lengths to
which Greek credulity will
run are really amazing.
Any falsehood, however
outrageous, has its due
attestation.

Again, Skopas, writer
of a work on Olympic
Victors, relates that De-
mainetos the Parrhasian
at a human sacrifice,
which the Arcadians were
even in his day making
to Zeus Lykaios, tasted
the entrails of the boy
that had been immolated
and thereupon turned into
a wolf; but that in the
tenth year he was restored
to athletics, came back,
and won a victory in
the boxing - match at
Olympia.'

Saint Augustine •
de civ. Dei 18. 17.

after nine years had
gone by they swam
once more across the
same pool and were
transformed into men
again.

In conclusion he has
actually mentioned by
name a certain De-
mainetos, asserting that
he, having tasted the
sacrifice of an immo-
lated boy, which the
Arcadians were wont
to make to their god
Lykaios, was thereupon
changed into a wolf;
and that in the tenth
year he was restored to
his own form, practised
boxing, and won in a
match at Olympia.'

Pausanias
6. 8. 2.

' As to a certain boxer
named Damarchos, a
Parrhasian of Arkadia
by race, I was not pre-
pared to believe—with
the exception of his
victory at Olympia—the
story told by sundry
braggarts. For they say
that he changed from
a man into a wolf at
the sacrifice of Zeus
Lykaios, and that in
the tenth year after-
wards he became a

man again.'

Pliny and Saint Augustine are obviously drawing from the
same well, viz. Varro1. Only, whereas Pliny cites Varro's sources'
without Varro's name, Saint Augustine cites Varro's name without
Varro's sources. The sources in question are both satisfactory for
our purpose—the ascertaining of popular belief. Euanthes was
an author of repute, and moreover bore a name which is known
to have occurred in Arkadia2: he professedly follows Arcadian
writers. Skopas3 was probably wrong about the victor's name ;

1 Varro de gentepopuli Romani frag. 17 {Hist. Rom. frag. p. 233 ft Peter).

2 Collitz-Bechtel Gr. Dial.-Inschr. i. 357 no. 1247 B 3 cp. 20.

C. Miiller Frag. hist. Gr. iii. ri no. 33 would read Neanthes for Euanthes. But see
Jacoby in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 846.

3 C Miiller Frag. hist. Gr. iv. 407 suggests that Pausanias derived the story of