Nyctimus, a son of the Arcadian king Lycaon, succeeded to the throne of the Pelasgian realm; in his reign fell the great flood of Deucalion's age.1
Apollodorus numbers Nyctimus among the fifty sons whom Lycaon, king of the Arcadians and son of Pelasgus, begot by many wives — the roll opening Melaeneus, Thesprotus, Helix, Nyctimus, Peucetius. These sons surpassed all men in pride and impiety: to test Zeus, who had come among them as a day-labourer, they slaughtered a male child of the natives at the instigation of the elder brother Maenalus, mixed his bowels with the sacrifices, and set the dish before the god. Zeus in disgust overturned the table at the place still called Trapezus and blasted Lycaon and his sons with thunderbolts — all but Nyctimus, the youngest, whom Earth saved by seizing the right hand of Zeus and appeasing his wrath.2
When Nyctimus succeeded to the kingdom, the flood of Deucalion's age came upon the earth, and some said it was occasioned by the impiety of Lycaon's sons.3
Other tellings laid the guilt on the father rather than the sons. Pausanias makes Lycaon himself the sacrificer, who brought a human child to the altar of Lycaean Zeus and was changed from man to wolf the moment he poured out its blood; Hyginus and Ovid likewise turn the king into a wolf for setting human flesh before the god.4
Pausanias gives Nyctimus the foremost place: as eldest son he possessed all the power, while his brothers went out to found cities where each thought best — Pallantium by Pallas, Oresthasium by Orestheus, Phigalia by Phigalus. Even the first colonising venture passed through his hand: Oenotrus, youngest of Lycaon's sons, asked his brother Nyctimus for money and men, then crossed the sea to Italy, the earliest expedition ever despatched from Greece to plant a colony.5
Through the reading that made Callisto a daughter of Lycaon, Nyctimus is her brother — though her parentage was contested: Eumelus and some others called her Lycaon's daughter, while Hesiod made her one of the nymphs, Asius a daughter of Nycteus, and Pherecydes a daughter of Ceteus. After Nyctimus died, Pausanias says, the throne passed not to a son of his own but to Callisto's son Arcas, who taught the people the growing of crops he had learned from Triptolemus; from this king the land was called Arcadia in place of Pelasgia. Yet Arcadian tradition still traced a royal line back to Nyctimus, reckoning Psophis as son of Arrhon, son of Erymanthus, son of Aristas, son of Parthaon, son of Periphetes, son of Nyctimus.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
