LYKAION
Arkadia, Greece.
The Sacred
mountain of W Arkadia, site of the Lykaian Gaines, was
famed as the birthplace of Zeus and the home of Pan
(
Paus. 8.38.2-6). There are two peaks; the slightly lower
one to the S is more prominent. Between these two peaks
at a height of ca. 1200 m there have been found the remains of an early Hellenistic or Roman hippodrome, a
stoa, a stadium, and other service buildings. Fifteen minutes SW, is the Sanctuary of Zeus Lycaios on the S peak.
There are to be found traces of the precinct of the god
which no man was to enter, and the bases of two columns on which originally stood gold eagles. The entire
summit of the peak is composed of the great ash altar
on which human sacrifice was practiced even in Classical
times (Pl.
Min. 3 15c). Pausanias also mentions a Sanctuary of Parrhasian Apollo on the E side of the mountain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
K. Kuruniotis in
ArchEph (1904) 153-214; (1905) 161-78 (all on Lykaion); (1910) 29-36
(Apollo Sanctuary); id. in
Praktika (1909) 185-200
PI;
RE XIII (1927) 2235-44; G. Mylonas,
Classical Studies
in Honor of William Abbott Oldfather (1943) 122-33.
W. F. WYATT, JR
