CHAPTER II

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And Lycaon the son of Pelasgus devised even wiser things than his father. For he founded the town Lycosura on the Mountain Lycæus, and called Zeus Lycæus, and established a festival to him called the Lycæa. I do not think the Pan-Athenæa was established by the Athenians earlier, for their games were called Athenæa till the time of Theseus, when they were called Pan-Athenæa, because when they were then celebrated all the Athenians were gathered together into one city. As to the Olympian games--which they trace back to a period earlier than man, and in which they represent Cronos and Zeus wrestling, and the Curetes as the first competitors in running--for these reasons they may be passed over in the present account. And I think that Cecrops, king of Athens, and Lycaon were contemporaries, but did not display equal wisdom to the deity. For Cecrops was the first to call Zeus supreme, and did not think it right to sacrifice anything that had life, but offered on the altar the national cakes, which the Athenians still call by a special name, (_pelani_). But Lycaon brought a baby to the altar of Lycæan Zeus, and sacrificed it upon it, and sprinkled its blood on the altar. And they say directly after this sacrifice he became a wolf instead of a man. This tale I can easily credit, as it is a very old tradition among the Arcadians, and probable enough in itself. For the men who lived in those days were guests at the tables of the gods in consequence of their righteousness and piety, and those who were good clearly met with honour from the gods, and similarly those who were wicked with wrath, for the gods in those days were sometimes mortals who are still worshipped, as Aristæus, and Britomartis of Crete, and Hercules the son of Alcmena, and Amphiaraus the son of Œcles, and besides them Castor and Pollux. So one might well believe that Lycaon became a wolf, and Niobe the daughter of Tantalus a stone. But in our day, now wickedness has grown and spread all over the earth in all towns and countries, no mortal any longer becomes a god except in the language of excessive flattery,[19] and the wicked receive wrath from the gods very late and only after their departure from this life. And in every age many curious things have happened, and some of them have been made to appear incredible to many, though they really happened, by those who have grafted falsehood on to truth. For they say that after Lycaon a person became a wolf from a man at the Festival of Lycæan Zeus, but not for all his life: for whenever he was a wolf if he abstained from meat ten months he became a man again, but if he tasted meat he remained a beast. Similarly they say that Niobe on Mount Sipylus weeps in summer time. And I have heard of other wonderful things, as people marked like vultures and leopards, and of the Tritons speaking with a human voice, who sing some say through a perforated shell. Now all that listen with pleasure to such fables are themselves by nature apt to exaggerate the wonderful, and so mixing fiction with truth they get discredited.

[19] _e.g._, as used to the Roman Emperors, _divus_.

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