Thaumasion again. This incoherence is the sign of a compromise. It is tempting to
locate the revision of the Methydrion tradition and the focus upon an official version
at the time of the creation of the Arcadian League (Jost 1985:241–9, 2002b:380–1).
Particularly localized traditions, which held that Zeus had been bathed in the Lousios
(Pausanias 8.28.2) and that Rhea had purified herself in the Neda (8.41.2), subsisted
in their own right until the time of Pausanias without being subject to modification.
So far as the birth and infancy of Hermes was concerned, an official Arcadian
tradition located the god’s education in Parrhasia, at Akakesion. A statue of Hermes
Akakesios was preserved there: ‘‘The infant Hermes was reared in this place and
Akakos, the son of Lykaon, was his stepfather’’ (Pausanias 8.36.10). The resemblance
between the toponymic epithet Akakesios and the Homeric epithet of Hermes
akake ̄ta(‘‘he who does no harm’’) must have been the starting point of Arcadian
claims about Hermes (Pausanias 8.3.2). This official version, doubtless generated at
the time of the creation of the Arcadian League, seems to have prevailed in Arcadia; it
relegated the region of Mount Cyllene to a secondary position. The theme of
the god’s birth on Mount Cyllene was a literary one in Greece, known above all
from theHomeric Hymn to Hermes. But when Pausanias visited Pheneos and Cyllene,
he recorded nologos, either about the union of Zeus and Maia or about the birth of
the young Hermes, in hisPeriegesis. Two Pheneate traditions alone were recorded,
these bearing upon the toponyms of the episodes of the god’s infancy: the Trikrena
mountains, with three springs where the nymphs bathed the newborn Hermes
(8.16.1) and Mount Chelydorea, where Hermes made a lyre after finding a tortoise
(8.17.5). It all seems as if in Arcadia even the god, so often called ‘‘Cyllenian’’ in
Greek literature, had been appropriated by the Parrhasians and by Megalopolis, where
Hermes Akakesios was worshiped (Jost 1998a:235–6).
The myths of divine birth testify to the various sanctuaries’ desire to assert prece-
dence. But in this we are not dealing with a uniquely Arcadian phenomenon. Other
myths have a more indigenous resonance: these are the myths that underline the
precariousness of the boundaries between animals, men, and gods. Such is the myth
of Lykaon’s transformation into a wolf, or that of Demeter’s metamorphosis into a
mare and Poseidon’s into a stallion.
Lykaon, the second mythical king of Arcadia after Pelasgos, became the subject of a
tale of metamorphosis in the Mount Lykaion sanctuary, and this is recorded by
Pausanias (8.2.3). ‘‘He laid a newborn human on the altar of Zeus Lykaios, sacrificed
the baby, and smeared the blood over the altar; and it is said that immediately after
the sacrifice, he became a wolf instead of a man.’’ According to other versions (Jost
1985:261 nn.6–7, 262 nn.1–12) the transformation of Lykaon (and/or that of his
sons) into a wolf resulted from a sacrilegious feast: in order to test whether they were
in the presence of a god, Lykaon and/or his sons set human flesh before Zeus. The
responsibility for this action was attributed sometimes to Lykaon, sometimes, in a
version that absolves the king and presents him as a pious man, to his sons, the
Lykaonids. The victim was, according to the sources, a guest of Lykaon, a Molossian
hostage he was keeping at his court, or, more often, a child, sometimes even one of
Lykaon’s own sons or his grandson, Arkas. Zeus, enraged, overturned the banqueting
table, bringing a dramatic end to the commensality of men and gods. He inflicted,
besides, punishment on those responsible: sometimes Lykaon is transformed into a
wolf, sometimes he is struck by a thunderbolt, or he sees his house struck as he
274 Madeleine Jost