Lycaonia

“ They go to the very heart of the men and things which they describe: and hence the words and acts which they record are found to contain the essential characteristics of whole classes of men, and the portrait of an individual becomes that of a class. This joyful outburst of the people of Lycaonia gives utterance to one of the most striking and universal convictions of heathenism, and stands in very close and intimate relations with that greatest of all facts in the history of the world, the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. ”

“ The Carians were dominant in the southern angle of the peninsula and in the Ægean Islands; and the Lycians lay next them on the east, and were sometimes confounded with them. One of the most powerful tribes of the Carians, the Tremilse, were in the eyes of the Greeks hardly to be separated from the mountainous district which they knew as Lycia proper; while other tribes extended as far as the Halys. A district of the Troad, to the south of Mount Ida, was called Lycia, and there was a Lycaonia on both sides of the Middle Taurus; while Attica had its Lycia, and Crete its Lycians. ”

“ The Lycaonians appear to have been in early times to a great extent independent of the Persian empire, and were like their neighbours the Isaurians a wild and lawless race of freebooters; but their country was traversed by one of the great natural lines of high road through Asia Minor, from Sardis and Ephesus to the Cilician gates, and a few considerable towns grew up along or near this line. The most important was Iconium, in the most fertile spot in the country, of which it was always regarded by the Romans as the capital, although ethnologically it was Phrygian. ”

“ Pausanias (viii. 2) says that Lycaon sacrificed a child to Zeus on the altar on mount Lycaeus, and immediately after the sacrifice was turned into a wolf. This gave rise to the story that a man was turned into a wolf at each annual sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus, but recovered his human form if he abstained from human flesh for ten years. The oldest city, the oldest cultus (that of Zeus Lycaeus) , and the first civilization of Arcadia are attributed to Lycaon. ”

“ Afterwards Lycus, the son of the Attic king Pandion, when driven out by his brother Aegeus, came to Sarpedon, and from him the Termilians got the name of Lycians. Their laws were Cretan and Carian. They wore hats adorned with feathers, goat skins round their shoulders, sickle-shaped swords and daggers, coats of mail, greaves, bows, and arrows of reeds. They were named after the mother, and not after the father, and spoke of the mothers of their mothers as their ancestors. The son of a free woman and a slave was free and passed for a well-born man ”

“ Myrtale did not lose a single word, but while Lycon was kneeling before her she noticed that his tearful eyes were very handsome, and that a delicate odor of ointment rose from his hair. The power of trifles has always been great, especially with women. This perfume made a strange impression upon her. For a moment she forgot that Lycon was a slave, and compared him in her mind with the son of their neighbor the baker, who after having spent ten days in Athens went as foppishly clad and moved as stiffly as the Athenian dandies. ”

“ Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comes up from the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours basking in the sun. Here, on their mother's back, the youngsters stretch their limbs delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor power, absorb energy.
They are motionless; but, if I only blow upon them, they stampede as nimbly as though a hurricane were passing. Hurriedly, they disperse; hurriedly, they reassemble: a proof that, without material nourishment, the little animal machine is always at full pressure, ready to work. ”

“ Here, in the daytime, if things be peaceful all around, the Lycosa stations herself, either to enjoy the warmth of the sun, her great delight, or to lie in wait for game. The threads of the silk lining afford a firm hold to the claws on every side, whether the object be to sit motionless for hours, revelling in the light and heat, or to pounce upon the passing prey. ”

“ Lycas flew into a towering rage when our flight was established for certain, and railed bitterly at Doris, whom he considered as the moving factor in it. Of the hard words and the beating he gave her I will say nothing, for the particulars are not known to me, but I will affirm that Tryphaena, who was the sole cause of the unpleasantness, persuaded Lycas to hunt for his fugitives in the house of Lycurgus, which was our most probable sanctuary. ”

“ He found the son of Lycaon, goodly and valiant, and took his stand before his face, and spake to him, saying: "Pandarus, where now are thy bow and thy winged arrows, and thy fame? Therein may no man of this land vie with thee, nor any in Lycia declare himself to be better than thou. Come now, lift up thy hands in prayer to Zeus, and let fly a shaft at this man, whoe'er he be that prevaileth thus, and hath verily wrought the Trojans much mischief, seeing he hath loosed the knees of many men and goodly; if indeed he be not some god that is wroth with the Trojans, angered by reason of sacrifices ”

“ To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant. The Lycosa's affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest and most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. What cares the Lycosa for her brood! She accepts another's as readily as her own; she is satisfied so long as her back is burdened with a swarming crowd, whether it issue from her ovaries or elsewhence. ”

“ We seem to find it latent in the Arcadian worship of Zeus Λυκαῖος and the legend of King Lycaon. The latter offers a cannibal-meal to the disguised God, who turns him into a wolf for his sins; and the later Arcadian ritual in honour of this God betrays a hint of lycanthropy; some one who partook of the sacrifice or who swam across a certain lake was supposed to be transformed into a wolf for a certain time. ”

“ Lycon recognized in him an old slave named Satyrus, who had a sullen face and lazy bearing.
At sight of the youth in travelling dress, he said harshly: “What do you want? My master is sick and receives no one.” With these words he slammed the door so that the whole house shook. Lycon signed to Paegnion, who knocked again. “My good fellow,” he called, “announce me to your master. Tell him I am Lycon the Athenian, son of Megacles, and that I bring a greeting and message from Phorion, who was his guest a short time ago.” ”

“ A flutter of wings rises from the depths. Run to earth in her private apartments, the Lycosa is doubtless struggling with the intruder. That noise of wings is the song of victory of the Calicurgus, unless, indeed, it be her death-song. The murderer may well be the murdered. Which of the two will emerge from below alive?
It is the Lycosa, who hurriedly scampers out and takes up her stand at the entrance to the burrow in her position of defence, with her fangs open and her four front-legs outstretched. ”

“ Lycon, who suspected no evil, continued his usual mode of life. One noon he went to the house of a freedman named Opasion, who usually had gay doings in his home, as he lived by entertaining young men. The little peristyle, scarcely ten feet long, was filled with a noisy, laughing party. Half a score of youths in mantles of every hue had formed a circle around two fighting quails.
“I’ll bet fifteen drachmae against you, Opasion,” shouted one voice. ”

“ The skull and teeth are quite Cynoid in character: the former presenting only one single slight and unimportant point in which it tends to resemble that of a Hyæna.
The Lycaon is about the size of a Wolf. Its skin varies a good deal in its markings. “White, black, and yellow ochre are its chief tints; the white predominates in some, the black in others, and forms the fundamental colours; the spots are very irregular, sometimes large, sometimes small, very varyingly disposed on the surface of the body; the white and ochreous spots are always mixed with black. ”

“ For, on that day of misfortune, Lycon, with perhaps a score of boats, saved from about twenty flooded houses eighty citizens, men, women and children, besides more than two hundred and seventy slaves. So great is the number of those who owe their lives to Lycon. ”

“ You have not been half so long under my roof as the water-clock needs to run out, yet you seem to read the wishes of my soul. Who are you, young man? Your voice is strangely familiar, yet no ... you speak the Attic dialect so purely that Phorion, who was born in the city, has no better accent.”
With these words he rose slowly, by the help of his cane, and took Lycon’s arm.
“Another person,” he added, “might perhaps be angry with you or feel offended. I am neither. It is seldom, very seldom, that a careless youth has so much affection for a sick and feeble man. ”

“ Never are they seen to put their mouths to the skin that should be a sort of teat to them. On the other hand, the Lycosa, far from being exhausted and shrivelling, keeps perfectly well and plump. She has the same pot-belly when she finishes rearing her young as when she began. She has not lost weight: far from it; on the contrary, she has put on flesh: she has gained the wherewithal to beget a new family next summer, one as numerous as to-day’s. ”

“ In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier. She has naught to serve her but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap upon the formidable prey, to master it by her dexterity, to annihilate it, in a measure, by her swift-slaying talent.
Annihilate is the word: the Bumble-bees whom I draw from the fatal hole are a sufficient proof. As soon as that shrill buzzing, which I called the death-song, ceases, in vain I hasten to insert my forceps: I always bring out the insect dead, with slack proboscis and limp legs. Scarce a few quivers of those legs tell me that it is a quite recent corpse. ”

“ In a few words I told Ascyltos of the robbery, when he joined us, and of our unfortunate love-affairs as well. He was for prepossessing the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, naming the increasing wantonness of Lycas as the cause of our secret and sudden change of habitation. When Lycurgus had heard everything, he swore that he would always be a tower of strength between us and our enemies. Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the morning toilette. ”

“ The whole family emerges from the bag straightway. Then and there, the youngsters climb to the mother's back. As for the empty bag, now a worthless shred, it is flung out of the burrow; the Lycosa does not give it a further thought. Huddled together, sometimes in two or three layers, according to their number, the little ones cover the whole back of the mother, who, for seven or eight months to come, will carry her family night and day. Nowhere can we hope to see a more edifying domestic picture than that of the Lycosa clothed in her young. ”

“ And the son of Lycaon answered, "Aeneas, I take him for none other than the son of Tydeus. I know him by his shield, the visor of his helmet, and by his horses. It is possible that he may be a god, but if he is the man I say he is, he is not making all this havoc without heaven's help, but has some god by his side who is shrouded in a cloud of darkness, and who turned my arrow aside when it had hit him. ”

“ Tryphaena was disposed to mercy, as all was not lost for her pleasures, but Lycas remembered the seduction of his wife and the insults to which he had been subjected in the portico of the temple of Hercules: "Tryphaena," he gritted out, his face convulsed with savage passion, "you are aware, I believe, that the immortal gods have a hand in human affairs: what did they do but lead these scoundrels aboard this ship in ignorance of the owner and then warn each of us alike, by a coincidence of dreams, of what they had done? ”

“ Lycon shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out towards the bay. The mass of water was moving across the cove like a rampart nine or ten ells high, the crest and bottom white with foam, and at a velocity greater than that of a man running at full speed. He saw the billow roll under the craft resting on the ground, raise them aloft, and sweep them onward in its own mad course.
Followed by Conops, he leaped into Dorion’s boat, shouting at the top of his voice to the people in the other vessels:
“Loose the boats from the quay!... or the water will fill them and drown us all.” ”

“ When the water has been stirred up there rises a vapor, like mist; after a time the mist becomes cloud, gathers to itself other clouds, and makes rain fall on the land of the Arcadians.
8.38.5 There is on Mount Lykaion a sanctuary of Pan, and a grove of trees around it, with a race-course in front of which is a running-track. Of old they used to hold here the Lycaean games. Here there are also bases of statues, with now no statues on them. On one of the bases an elegiac inscription declares that the statue was a portrait of Astyanax, and that Astyanax was of the race of Arcas. ”

“ She does not come out again, seeks nothing better elsewhere. A large wire-gauze cover rests on the soil in the pan and prevents escape.
In any case, the watch, in this respect, makes no demands upon my diligence. The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifests no regret for her natural burrow. There is no attempt at flight on her part. Let me not omit to add that each pan must receive not more than one inhabitant. The Lycosa is very intolerant. To her, a neighbour is fair game, to be eaten without scruple when one has might on one's side. ”