Alcmaeon
(
Ἀλκμαίων). A native of Argos and son of
Amphiaraüs (q.v.) and Eriphylé.
As his father, in departing on the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, had bound him and
his brother Amphilochus, then mere boys, to avenge him on their faithless mother, Alcmaeon
refused to take part in the second expedition, that of the
Epigoni (q.v.), till he had first fulfilled that filial duty; nevertheless his mother,
bribed by Thersander with the garment of Harmonia, persuaded him to go. The real leader at the
siege of Thebes, he slew the Theban king, Laodamas, and was the first to enter the conquered
city. On returning home, he, at the bidding of the Delphian Apollo, avenged his father by
slaying his mother, with, or according to some accounts, without, his brother's help; but
immediately, like Orestes, he was set upon by the Furies, and wandered distracted, seeking
purification and a new home. Phegeus, of the Arcadian Psophis, half purified him of his guilt,
and gave him his daughter Arsinoë or Alphesiboea to wife, to whom he presented the
jewels of Harmonia, which he had brought from Argos. But soon the crops failed in the land,
and he fell into his distemper again, till, after many wanderings, he arrived at the mouth of
the Acheloüs, and there, in an island that had floated up, he found the country
promised by the god, which had not existed at the time of his dying mother's curse, and so he
was completely cured. He married Acheloüs's daughter,
Callirrhoë, by whom he had two sons, Acarnan and Amphoterus
(q.v.). Unable to withstand his wife's entreaties that she might have Harmonia's necklace and
robe, he went to Phegeus in Arcadia, and begged those treasures of him, pretending that he
would dedicate them at Delphi for the perfect healing of his madness. He obtained them; but
Phegeus, on learning the truth, set his son to waylay him on the road, and rob him of his
treasure and his life. Alcmaeon 's sons then avenged their father's death on his murderers.
Alcmaeon received divine honours after death, and had a sanctuary at Thebes and a consecrated
tomb at Psophis.