AMPHIARAUS, a celebrated seer and prince of Argos, son of Oicles (or Apollo) and Hypermestra. He took part in the voyage of the Argonauts and in the chase of the Calydonian boar. He foresaw the disastrous issue of the war against Thebes and at first refused to share in it ; but Eriphyle, bribed by Polyneices with the fatal necklace of Harmonia, persuaded him to set out on the expedition. Knowing his doom, he bade his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, avenge his death upon their mother.
On the defeat of the Seven, Amphiaraus, pursued by Periclyme nus, would have been slain had not Zeus opened a chasm into which the seer, with his chariot and horses, disappeared. Hence forth he was numbered with the immortals and worshipped as a god. Near Oropus, on the supposed site of his passing, his sanc tuary arose, with healing springs and an oracle famous for its interpretation of dreams (Pausanias i. . There was an other temple dedicated to him on the road from Thebes to Potniae, and here was the oracle of Amphiaraus consulted by Croesus and Mardonius.
See Herodotus viii. 134; Pindar, Olym p. vi., Nem. ix.