Erysichthon is a character in a story Achelous tells Theseus as an example of what happens to those who scorn the gods. Erysichthon angers Ceres by chopping down her sacred forest, so she sets the curse of hunger on him. Unable to satiate his hunger, he sells his daughter Mestra as a slave to buy more food. He eventually eats himself to death.
Get the entire Metamorphoses LitChart as a printable PDF.
Erysichthon Character Timeline in Metamorphoses
The timeline below shows where the character Erysichthon appears in Metamorphoses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 8: Erysichthon
...to assume all kinds of shapes. Achelous then tells the story of a man named Erysichthon who tried to chop down a sacred oak which grew in Ceres’s ancient woodland. Erysichthon...
(full context)
...in Ceres’s wood mourn the loss of the sacred oak. They beg Ceres to punish Erysichthon, and she agrees. Ceres sends one of her dryads to the land where the goddess...
(full context)
Erysichthon starts to dream of food. He awakes starving and demands food. Banquets are laid before...
(full context)
...thus deceives her enslaver, and he walks away. Mestra then resumes her normal shape. When Erysichthon sees that Mestra can change form, he sells her to enslaver after enslaver, but she...
(full context)
