Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Callimachus tells how Erysichthon of Thessaly (son of Triopas in his hymn) violated Demeter’s sacred grove. Despite warnings, he took an axe to a great poplar (or oak) beloved of the nymphs, to roof a feasting-hall. Demeter, appearing first in the guise of her own priestess Nicippe, ordered him to stop; he threatened her with the axe. The goddess then revealed her divinity and laid on him an unappeasable hunger—a living famine in his belly. Erysichthon ate without cease: his household’s stores, oxen, racehorses, even the family cat, then begged in the streets. His father Triopas prayed in vain. In Callimachus the poem turns to ritual address of Demeter before finishing every domestic detail; later Roman narrative (Ovid) adds that his daughter Mestra, granted shape-shifting by Poseidon, was sold repeatedly to buy food until nothing remained and Erysichthon consumed his own flesh. The Greek core is Callimachus: sacrilege against Demeter’s tree, divine warning ignored, curse of endless hunger—an Eleusinian-toned warning hymn rather than a full novella.