The human race, which had been steadfast under misfortune, could not bear good fortune. It became sensual, effeminate, and haughty. Zeus heard of this human degeneracy, assumed human form, and betook himself to earth to discover how much of truth there was in these evil reports. He found a worse state of things than he had feared. Every kind of abomination prevailed. At the close of day he went to the palace of Lycaon, king of Arcadia. To those assembled there he gave a sign that a deity was present. They immediately began to pray. Then said the king: “Let us see whether this is a deity or a mortal like ourselves.” If mortal, he resolved to slay him in the night. He first of all prepared a banquet for him. He cut the throat of a man who had been sent to him by the people of Molossia to be scourged, took the still quivering members, threw some of them into boiling water, and placed the rest of them upon a spit and held them over the fire. When Zeus saw this he shook the earth and at once the mighty castle was in ruins. The king fled in terror to the fields. He tried to speak, but his voice was an awful howl. And as his voice changed, so did his whole body. He had hair instead of garments and his arms became feet. As a wolf, with eyes glaring, with a longing for blood, and with the action of the wild beasts, he sprang among the herds and his teeth were covered with the blood of the strangled animals. Zeus not only determined to punish Lycaon, but prepared for the destruction of the whole human race. He betook himself to Olympus, entered his golden palace, called the other deities together, and announced his decision to them. Some approved of it; to others the word of their master caused pain and they said: “Who will build us sacrificial altars in future if the race of mortals is destroyed?” Zeus promised to people the earth with another and better race and seized his thunderbolts to hurl them over all the earth. But suddenly he feared that the storm of fire might spread through the whole sacred firmament and reduce the universe to ashes. Therefore he dismissed the one-eyed Cyclops, who forged his bolts, and decided to destroy the world by a deluge. He summoned Æolus, god of the winds, and ordered him to retain in his grotto the winds which dispel the rain clouds and release only the south wind. This was done. The south wind immediately spread its heavy, wet wings over sea and land, its foreboding face was concealed by the night, mists covered its brow, its heavily waving beard dripped with rain, and from its curls torrents of water poured down. Zeus pressed the cloud with his broad hand and at once the thunder resounded through immeasurable space. Swiftly the goddess Iris ascended and descended her seven-hued rainbow, drawing water from the agitated sea and filling the clouds. All growing things were bent to the ground and it was not long before the husbandman’s hopes disappeared before the raging flood.