in fabulous history, the first king of Arcadia, son of Pelasgus and Meliboea. He built a town called Lycosura, upon the top of Mount Lyceus, in honour of Jupiter. He had many wives, by whom he had a daughter called Callisto, and fifty sons. He lived about 1820 years before the Christian era, and was succeeded on the throne by Nyctimus, the eldest of his sons. This is also the name of another king of Arcadia, celebrated for his cruelties. He was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because he had offered human victims upon the altar of the god Pan. Some attribute this metamorphosis to another cause. The sins of mankind, as they relate, had become so enormous, that Jupiter, having visited the earth in order to punish its impiety and wickedness, came to Arcadia, where he was announced as a god, and the people began to pay proper adoration to his divinity. But Lycaon, who used to sacrifice all strangers to his wanton cruelty, laughed at the pious prayers of his subjects, and, to try the divinity of the god, he served up human flesh on his table. This impiety so irritated Jupiter that he immediately destroyed the house of Lycaon, and changed him into a wolf.