whole and unharmed”.<\/strong><\/p>\nKing of Arcadia<\/h2>\n
Of course, this angered Zeus and he sent flashes of lightning bolts to kill the sons of Lycaon<\/strong> and he turned Lycaon into a wolf\/werewolf. Zeus then took Arcas and healed his wounds until he became whole again. With no one to succeed the throne of Lycaon, Arcas ascended the throne and under his rulership, Arcadia prospered.<\/strong> Arcas spread agriculture throughout the region and is believed to have taught his citizens how to bake bread and weave.<\/p>\nHe was known as the greatest hunter in Arcadia\u2013 a skill he inherited from his mother Callisto. He took to hunting frequently and was joined by some of his citizens. On one of his hunting trips, he came across a bear and planned to kill it.<\/strong> What he didn’t know was that that bear was his mother, Callisto, who Hera had turned into the animal.<\/p>\nThe bear (Callisto), upon recognizing her son, rushed to embrace him<\/strong> but Arcas misinterpreted it as an attack by the bear and drew his arrow to shoot. Fortunately, Zeus, who was observing all this in silence, finally intervened and prevented son from killing his mother.<\/strong> Zeus then turned Arcas into a bear and placed both mother bear (Callisto) and son (Arcas) into stars. Callisto’s star became known as Ursa Major and Arcas star became known as Ursa Minor in the Northern Sky.<\/p>\nThe Myth According to Hyginus<\/h2>\n
According to the Roman historian Hyginus, Arcas was the child of King Lycaon who wanted to test the omniscience of Zeus by sacrificing his son.<\/strong> This angered Zeus who destroyed the table on which Arcas was being sacrificed. He then demolished the house of Lycaon with thunder and later healed Arcas. When Arcas grew up, he established a town called Trapezus on the site on which his father’s (Lycaon’s) house once stood.<\/p>\nLater, Arcas became king and the best hunter in Arcadia<\/strong> with his own entourage of hunters. Once, the hunters in Arcas company with hunting with him when they encountered the bear. Arcas chased the bear until the bear wandered into the temple of Arcas god, Zeus, located in the town of Lycae. Arcas drew his bow and arrow to kill the bear<\/strong> for it was forbidden for any mortal to enter the temple.<\/p>\nZeus intervened and prevented son from killing his mother. He then transformed Arcas into a bear and placed both of them among the stars in the Northern Sky.<\/strong> They became known as Ursa Major meaning Great Bear and Ursa Minor meaning Lesser Bear. However, Hera found out and it angered her the more so she requested the Titan Tethys to place the Great Bear and the Lesser Bear in places where they can’t fall below the horizon to drink water.<\/p>\nThe Myth According to Pausanias<\/h2>\n
Pausanias, the Greek geographer narrated that Arcas became king after Nyctimus, the son of King Lycaon, died. At the time, the region was called Pesalgia but after Arcas ascended the throne, he changed the name to Arcadia to reflect his reign.<\/strong> He taught his citizens the art of weaving and making bread. Later, Arcas fell in love with the sea-nymph Erato and married her.<\/p>\nThe couple gave birth to three sons namely Apheidas, Azan, and Elastus, and divided the kingdom among them. Pausanias records that Arcas had one illegitimate son named Autolas with an unnamed woman.<\/p>\n
The Burial<\/h2>\n
When he died, the oracle at Delphi insisted that his bones be brought from Mt Macnalus to Arcadia.<\/strong> His remains were then buried close to an altar of Hera in Mantineia, a city in Arcadia. The citizens of Tegea in Arcadia built statues of Arcas and his family at Delphi to honor them.<\/p>\nMeaning and Pronunciation in English<\/h2>\n
Available sources do not provide the meaning<\/strong> of Arcas but most describe him as the King of Arcadia who named the region after himself.<\/p>\nArcas is pronounced as |Ar-kas|<\/strong><\/p>\nConclusion<\/h2>\n
So far, we’ve looked at the mythology of Arcas according to various historians. Here is a recap<\/strong> of what we’ve discovered:<\/p>\n\n- Arcas was born after Zeus raped the sea nymph Callisto when he failed to woo her.<\/li>\n
- Hearing of what Zeus had done, Hera raved in anger and turned Callisto into a bear.<\/li>\n
- Zeus then snatched the boy before Hera could hurt him and gave him to Maia, the mother of Hermes, to be cared for in Arcadia.<\/li>\n
- The King of Arcadia, Lycaon, decided to test Zeus’s omniscience by sacrificing Arcas which angered the king of the gods and he killed Lycaon.<\/li>\n
- Arcas inherited the throne, became the best hunter and almost killed his mother save for the intervention of Zeus who turned him into a bear.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Later, Zeus turned both Callisto and Arcas into stars and reunited them in the sky as the constellations Ursa Major (Great Bear) and Ursa Minor (Lesser Bear) respectively. Hera then asked the Titan Tethys to deprive the Ursa Major and Minor<\/strong> of water by ensuring they never sank beyond the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arcas was a beloved ancestor of the Arcadians and the person after which the Arcadia region in Greece was named. To enable the region to develop he taught the people how to farm and helped to spread agriculture throughout the area. Arcas eventually got married and had three legitimate sons, two daughters and one illegitimate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22673"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23180,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22673\/revisions\/23180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ancient-literature.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}