Lycaon
（
Λυκάων). A mythical king of Arcadia, son of Pelasgus and
Meliboea (daughter of Oceanus) or Cyllené, and father of Callisto. He is said to
have founded on Mount Lycaeum the town Lycosura, the oldest that the sun looked upon, and to
have sacrificed a child to Zeus on the altar he had raised on the highest peak of the
mountain, on account of which he was changed into a wolf. (See
Lycaea.) Another legend relates that he had fifty impious sons. When Zeus
came to them in the guise of a beggar, in order to put their contempt of the gods to the test,
they followed the advice of Maenalus, the eldest, and set before him the entrails of a boy
which had been mixed with the sacrifice. The god, however, threw the table over and killed
Lycaon and his sons with lightning, with the exception of Nyctimus, the youngest, whom Gaea
saved by firmly holding the right hand of Zeus. During the reign of Nyctimus the deluge
connected with the name of Deucalion covered the land as a punishment for the impiety of
Lycaon and his sons. See Pausan. viii. 2.
