Arcas was the son of Zeus and the nymph Callisto, whom her father Lycaon's line and the gods' wrath alike marked for ruin.1
When his mother Callisto perished, Zeus snatched the infant away, named him Arcas, and gave him to Maia to rear in Arcadia, while Callisto he set in the sky as a star and called it the Bear.2
After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas the son of Callisto came to the throne. He brought to the Pelasgians the cultivation of crops, which he had learned from Triptolemus, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other arts besides, having learned spinning from Adristas; after this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians.3
His wife, Pausanias says, was no mortal woman but a Dryad nymph called Erato, by whom he had Azan, Apheidas, and Elatus; earlier he had fathered an illegitimate son, Autolaus.4
Apollodorus instead names Elatus and Aphidas as Arcas' two sons by Leanira daughter of Amyclas, or by Meganira daughter of Croco, or — according to Eumelus — by the nymph Chrysopelia; the brothers divided the land between them, but Elatus held all the power.5
Ovid tells how, in his fifteenth year, Arcas was hunting in the Erymanthian forest when he met his transformed bear-mother; not knowing her, he drew back his spear to pierce her, but Jove averted the crime and swept both up through the sky to fix them as constellations.6
In Hyginus' version Arcas chases his bear-mother into the forbidden precinct of Lycaean Zeus, where Arcadian law made entry punishable by death, and Jupiter out of pity sets both among the stars; because Arcas follows and guards Arctos, the Bear, he is called Arctophylax, the Bear-warden.7
Pausanias saw his grave near the altar of Hera at Mantinea, where the Mantineans had brought Arcas' bones from Maenalus in obedience to a Delphic oracle.8
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
