Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Pelasgus.
The gallery
Jupiter and Lycaon (Júpiter y Licaón)
Jan Cossiers, c. 1636–1638
This dramatic Flemish Baroque canvas in the Museo del Prado depicts the impiety of Lycaon, the son and successor of Pelasgus, first king of Arcadia. Cossiers stages the moment from Book I of Ovid's Metamorphoses when Lycaon, having served human flesh to test the divinity of his guest, is exposed by Jupiter: the god rises in wrath as his eagle hurls thunderbolts, while Lycaon springs from the banquet table, his head already contorting into that of a wolf. Through the Arcadian dynasty that Pelasgus founded — Pelasgus invented huts, sheepskin garments, and the acorn diet before his son Lycaon advanced his ambitions — the painting visualizes the cursed lineage descended from Arcadia's first man.
Lycaon Transformed into a Wolf
Hendrik Goltzius, 1589
An engraving from Hendrik Goltzius's illustrated edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book I, plate 9), now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It shows Jupiter transforming Lycaon — son of Pelasgus, the autochthonous first king of Arcadia — into a wolf as punishment for his blasphemous feast. Goltzius captures the metamorphosis in mid-motion, the king's body bristling with fur as he flees on all fours while Jupiter presides over the scene. The print belongs to the broader iconography of Pelasgus's Arcadian house, whose mythic founder is rarely portrayed alone and is most often evoked through the fate of his notorious son.