Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/315

 SIEGES OF THEBES. 283 the possession of the necklace of Eriphyle, and Alkmaeon went back to Psophis to fetch it, where Phegeus and his sons slew him. He had left twin sons, infants, with Kallirhoe, who prayed fervently to Zeus that they might be preternaturally invested with immediate manhood, in order to revenge the murder of their father. Her prayer was granted, and her sons Amphoterus and Akarnan, having instantaneously sprung up to manhood, proceed- ed into Arcadia, slew the murderers of their father, and brought away the necklace of Eriphyle, which they carried to Delphi. 1 Euripides deviated still more widely from the ancient epic, by making Alkmoeon the husband of Manto, daughter of Teiresias, and the father of Amphilochus. According to the Cyclic The- bai's, Manto was consigned by the victorious Epigoni as a special offering to the Delphian god ; and Amphilochus was son of Am- phiaraus, not son of Alkmteon. 2 He was the eponymous hero of the town called the Amphilochian Argos, in Akarnania, on the shore of the Gulf of Ambrakia. Thucydides tells us that he went thither on his return from the Trojan war, being dissatisfied with the state of affairs which he found at the Peloponnesian Argos. 3 The Akarnanians were remarkable for the numerous prophets which they supplied to the rest of Greece : their heroes though invited br Agamemnon to join in the Trojan war, would not consent to do so (Ephor. ap. Strabo. vii. p. 326 ; x. p. 462). 1 Apollodor. iii. 7, 7 ; Pausan. viii. 24, 3-4. His remarks upon the mis- chievous longing of Kallirhoe for the necklace are curious : he ushers them in by saying, that " many men, and still more women, are given to fall into absurd desires," etc. He recounts it with all the bonne foi which belongs lo the most assured matter of fact. A short allusion is in Ovid's Metamorphoses fix. 412^) 2 Theba'id, Cy. Keliqu. p. 70, Leutsch ; Schol. Apollon. Rhod. i. 408. The following lines cited in Athenceus (vii. p. 317) are supposed by Boeckh, with probable reason, to be taken from the Cyclic Theba'fs ; a portion of the advice of Amphiaraus to his sons at the time of setting out on his last expedition, TloV%.V~o66c fj.01, TfKVOV, %UV VOOV, 'A/^t^.0^' T/pUff Tolffiv e^apfio^ov, rtiv uv KO.TU, 6r/pov IKIJOI. There were two tragedies composed by Euripides, under the title of 'A/U- paiuv, o Sib i'u^idof, and 'Afapaiuv, 6 did, 'K.opivQov (Dindorf, Fragm, Eurip. p. 77). 3 Apollodor. iii. 7, 7 ; Thucyd. ii. 68.