ALCMAEON, son of Amphiaraus (q.v.). After the destruc tion of Thebes by the Epigonoi, Alcmaeon carried out his father's injunctions by killing his mother, as a punishment for which he was pursued by the Erinyes from place to place. On his arrival at Psophis in Arcadia, he was purified by its king Phegeus, whose daughter Arsinoe (or Alphesiboea) he married, making her a pres ent of the fatal necklace and the robe of Harmonia. But the Iand was cursed with barrenness, and the oracle declared that Alc maeon would never find rest until he reached a spot on which the sun had never shone at the time he slew his mother. Such a spot he found at the mouth of the river Achelous, where an island had recently been formed by the alluvial deposit ; here he settled and, forgetting his wife Arsinoe, married Callirrhoe (q.v.), the daughter of the river-god. His new wife longed for the necklace and robe, and Alcmaeon, returning to Psophis, obtained possession of them, on the pretence that he desired to dedicate them at Delphi. When the truth became known he was pursued and slain by Phegeus and his sons. After his death Alcmaeon was worshipped at Thebes; his tomb was at Psophis in a grove of cypresses.
See Apollodorus iii. 7 ; Thucydides ii. 68. 102 ; Pausanias viii. 24. x. 10 ; Ovid, Metam. ix. 40o et seq.