1 See above,Apollod. 1.7.2.

2 As to the love of Zeus for Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, hertransformation into a bear, and finally into the constellation of the Bear, seePaus. 1.25.1;Paus. 8.3.6ff.;Eratosthenes, Cat. 1;Libanius, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci,Appendix Narrationum, 34, p. 374;Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron481;Hyginus, Fab. 155, 176, and 177;Ov.Met. 2.409-507;Serv. Verg. G. 1.138;Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.685;Scholia in CaesarisGermanici Aratea, p. 381, ed. F. Eyssenhardt （in his edition ofMartianus Capella）;Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 5(First Vatican Mythographer 17; vol. ii. p. 94, Second Vatican Mythographer58). The transformation of Callisto into a bear is variously ascribed to theamorous Zeus himself, to the jealous Hera, and to the indignant Artemis. The descent ofthe Arcadians from a bear-woman through a son Arcas, whose name was popularly derivedfrom the Greekἄρκτος, “a bear,”has sometimes been adduced in favour of the view that the Arcadians were a totemicpeople with the bear for their totem. SeeAndrew Lang,Myth, Ritual andReligion （London, 1887）, ii.211ff.

3 The Tegeanhistorian Araethus also described the mother of Arcas as the daughter of Ceteus;according to him she was the granddaughter, not the daughter, of Lycaon, and her namewas Megisto, not Callisto. But he agreed in the usual tradition that the heroine hadbeen transformed into a bear, and he seems to have laid the scene of the transformationat Nonacris in northernArcadia. SeeHyginus, Ast. ii.1. According to aScholiast on Eur. Or.1646, Callisto, mother of Arcas, was a daughter of Ceteus by Stilbe.

• Cross-references to this page(4):
  • Harper's,Arcas
  • Smith's Bio,Arcas
  • Smith's Bio,Callisto
  • Smith's Bio,Maia
• Cross-references in notes to this page(1):
  • Apollodorus,Library,Apollod. 3.14
• Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page(1):
  • LSJ,σύνθηρ-ος