Lycaon Tests Zeus

A wicked man tests Zeus’ omniscience

Mortals spread out to cover the earth.  One of the first places they reached was a wild and mountainous land that would later be called Arcadia.  Hermes, the god loved by liars and thieves, was born there, and so was Hermes’ uncanny son Pan, upon whom human eyes cannot gaze with impunity.  Civilization arrived very slowly; for centuries the inhabitants ignored Demeter’s gifts and ate acorns instead of wheat. 

One of their earliest kings was Lycaon, a savage and intemperate man who fathered fifty sons upon his numerous wives. The youngest son was called Nyctimus.  

Lycaon worshipped Hermes, his local god—indeed, Lycaon had established Hermes’ cult, admiring the god’s cunning.  Lycaon doubted, however, the authenticity of Zeus, and was irked by his constant demand for sacrifices.  Finally, he decided to settle, once and for all, the question of whether Zeus was really a god.  Lycaon invited him for a visit, and Zeus, anticipating an excuse to put into action a certain plan that he had been contemplating, accepted.

After feeding Zeus sumptuously, Lycaon escorted him to the best bedroom in the palace.  Once his guest was asleep, Lycaon crept in and beat him mercilessly with a club.   Nonetheless, Zeus slept on, his breaths slow and steady.  Frustrated, Lycaon stabbed Zeus. He merely twitched, however, as if to shake off flies.  He awoke the next morning looking refreshed and declared that he was hungry for breakfast.

Determined still to prove himself right, Lycaon scrambled for a new plan.  Glimpsing Nyctimus, who was playing nearby, he grabbed the child with one hand and a knife with the other.  Gripping his bewildered son around the waist, Lycaon prepared to slit the child’s throat.  When Nyctimus, frantic with terror, kicked the knife out of his father’s hand, Lycaon, enraged, tore the boy’s throat open with his teeth.

When the small body had stopped moving, Lycaon’s rage cooled down.  He wiped the blood from his face and thought about how to proceed.  Butchering Nyctimus’ corpse, he prepared a meal, boiling some of the flesh and roasting the rest.  He arranged the food on a platter, summoned a servant, and ordered him to carry the meal to Zeus.  Lycaon was confident that, lacking a true god’s omniscience, Zeus would eat the flesh without realizing what it was, giving Lycaon the proof that he longed for.  

But Zeus knew immediately what had been placed on the table in front of him—indeed, he had foreseen all of these events long before Lycaon had invited him to visit.   Rising from his chair, Zeus grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and turned it over, spattering the floor and the walls with gobbets of Nyctimus’ flesh.  Then he strode over to Lycaon, who was cowering in a corner.

‘Wicked man—wicked beyond all others!  Bad enough that in your smug insolence you denied my divinity!  Now, by your ghastly actions, you have denied your own humanity, as well!

‘Leave this palace that was built for human habitation; leave this kingdom that was foolish enough to look to you as their leader; leave the human tribe altogether and run with those to whom you are most truly similar.’     

Zeus transfixed Lycaon with his gaze, holding fast his eyes.  Within seconds, the man began to change.  The muscles of his thighs and back rippled and expanded until his garments split.  His sandals tumbled from his feet as his heels disappeared into his ankles.  His nose grew longer and his eyes, yellow and bloodshot, moved round to either side of it.  His ears became pointed.  His mouth curled open in a slavering snarl; his tongue lolled out between dagger-like teeth.    Filthy grey fur covered his skin.  

Lycaon had become a wolf.  With a howl of anguish, he loped out onto the forested slopes.  The peak where he spent what little remained of his life became known as Mount Lycaeon, in token of the awful crimes that he had committed nearby.

In order that the local people might not forget what Lycaon had done and the punishment that he had received, Zeus imposed upon them an enduring penalty.   Every four years, one of their young men was condemned to undergo the same transformation as Lycaon had.  If he abstained from eating human flesh while living in the forests for nine years, his form would be restored.   

This was not, however, Zeus’ only response to what Lycaon had done.  A far larger group of people was about to be sentenced to a far greater punishment.