Lycaon2.0001_Rubens

Lycaon2.0001_Rubens

Cossier's copy at RKD
Ov. Met. 1.139-261

Peter Paul Rubens, (detail from)"Lycaon Changed into a Wolf," oil on canvas, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Rochefort, inv. 166.

Lycaon, according to Ovid, set a "loathsome feast" (trans. Melville)" which attracted Jupiter's attention and helped him resolve to destroy the entire human race in a deluge from which only Deucalion and Pyrrha survived. Lycaon's depraved crime: murder of a human victim as cannibalistic food offering for disguised Jupiter. Told in Met. 1.163-261, the metamorphosis of Lycaon is the first story in the poem.

Image at right is a detail; for full frame, see wsu.edu.

Detail of a classical painting depicting a figure with a wolf-like head, gesturing with their hands

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.