Lycaon (king of Arcadia)
In Greek mythology, Lycaon (/laɪˈkeɪɒn/; , ) was a king of Arcadia who, in the most popular version of the myth, tested Zeus' omniscience by serving him the roasted flesh of Lycaon's own son Nyctimus, in order to see whether Zeus was truly all-knowing. In return for these gruesome deeds, Zeus transformed Lycaon into a wolf and killed his offspring; Nyctimus was restored to life. Despite being notorious for his horrific deeds, Lycaon was also remembered as a culture hero: he was believed to have founded the city Lycosura, to have established a cult of Zeus  Lycaeus and to have started the tradition of the Lycaean Games, which Pausanias thinks were older than the Panathenaic Games. According to Gaius Julius Hyginus (d. AD 17), Lycaon dedicated the first temple to Hermes of Cyllene. Family. Lycaon was the son of Pelasgus and either the Oceanid Meliboea or Deianira, daughter of another Lycaon. His wife was called Cyllene, a naiad nymph who gave her name to Mount Cyllenê though sometimes she was regarded as his mother instead. In some accounts, the Arcadian town Nonakris was thought to have been named after his wife. Lycaon was also known to  have had at least three daughters: Callisto, Dia and Psophis. Sons of Lycaon. According to the "Bibliotheca" (Pseudo-Apollodorus), Lycaon has 50 sons. An alternate list of Lycaon's sons is given by Pausanias. According to his account, almost each of them founded a city in Arcadia and became its eponym. Sources. There are several versions of the Lycaon myth already reported by Hesiod ("Fragmenta astronomica", by Eratosthenes, "Catasterismi"), told by several authors. The most popular version is the one reported by Ovid in the first book of his "Metamorphoses". The different versions of the myth are as follows: Modern  interpretation. The English poet Robert Graves, in his "The Greek Myths", explained the origin of Lycaon's myth as follows: