The Demon in a Wolfskin

Abstract

This chapter has investigates the case of the wolfskin-wearing Hero of Temesa, the vengeful ghost-demon of Odysseus’ crewman Polites. It is argued that the figure should be viewed as a werewolf amongst other ancient werewolves. It is important to disaggregate the various accounts of the Hero and to differentiate between them, including the two offered side-by-side by Pausanias, the first a narrative, the second an exposition of an image. Both of these accounts align in an informative way with a productive story-type in which champions deliver victims from a usually serpentine monster. Careful analysis of Pausanias’ description of the picture in the light of the story-type exposes the fact that it plays with a rather different cast-list from that of Pausanias’ narrative, one in which the role of the athlete-champion Euthymus is actually taken by the river Kalabros and the role of the victim is taken not by a girl, but by the youth Sybaris. As to the comparative examples of the story-type, the picture-description aligns particularly well with Antoninus Liberalis’ tale of the delivery of the youth Alcyoneus from the Lamia-Sybaris monster of Delphi by Eurybatus, descendant of the river Axius. In both cases the monster is seemingly transformed into a spring after its demise.