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

78 Human sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios

national cakes which the Athenians to this day call pelanoi.
Whereas Lycaon brought a human babe to the altar of Lycaean
Zeus, and sacrificed it, and poured out the blood on the altar ; and
they say that immediately after the sacrifice he was turned into
a wolf. For my own part I believe the tale : it has been handed
down among the Arcadians from antiquity, and probability is in
its favour. For the men of that time, by reason of their righteous-
ness and piety, were guests of the gods, and sat with them at
table ; the gods openly visited the good with honour, and the bad
with their displeasure. Indeed men were raised to the rank of
gods in those days, and are worshipped down to the present

time____But in the present age, when wickedness is growing to

such a height, and spreading over every land and every city, men
are changed into gods no more, save in the hollow rhetoric which
flattery addresses to power; and the wrath of the gods at the
wicked is reserved for a distant future when they shall have gone
hence. In the long course of the ages, many events in the past
and not a few in the present have been brought into general
discredit by persons who build a superstructure of falsehood on
a foundation of truth. For example, they say that from the time
of Lycaon downwards a man has always been turned into a
wolf at the sacrifice of Lycaean Zeus, but that the transforma-
tion is not for life ; for if, while he is a wolf, he abstains from
human flesh, in the ninth year afterwards he changes back into
a man, but if he has tasted human flesh he remains a beast for
ever1.'

The myth of Lykaon has come down to us through various
channels with a corresponding variety of detail. A useful con-
spectus is drawn up by O. Gruppe'2, from which it appears that
the sacrifice was offered either .by Lykaon himself (this was the
common tale)3 or by his sons4 (a variant meant to save the face
of Lykaon). The victim is described occasionally as a guest of
Lykaon5, or a Molossian hostage6, more often as a child7 of the

1 Paus. 8. 2. 2—6.

2 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 920 n. 4.

3 It went back to Hesiocl (pseudo-Eratosth. catast. 8, schol. Arat.phaen. 27, Eustath.
in II. p. 302, 18 f. Cp. Hes. frag. 136 Flach).

4 Apollod. 3. 8. 1, Hyg. fab. 176, Nikolaos Damask, frag. 43 {Frag. hist. Gr. iii. 378
Muller), Souid. s.v. Avkclwp, schol. Lyk. Al. 481, pseudo-Hekat.yr«£\ 375 [Frag. hist.
Gr. i. 31 Muller) ap. Natal. Com. 9. 9.

5 Serv. in Verg. Aen. 1. 731, Myth. Vat. 2. 60.

6 Ov. met. 1. 226 f.

7 Paus. 8. 2. 3 /3pecpos...av0puTrov, Nikol. Dam. and Souid. locc. citt. dijcraures nua
iratha.