Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After killing his mother Eriphyle, Alcmaeon wandered pursued by the Erinyes. At Psophis in Arcadia, King Phegeus purified him and gave him his daughter Arsinoë (or Alphesiboea) in marriage. Alcmaeon dedicated—or gave his bride—the necklace and peplos of Harmonia that had bought Amphiaraus’s doom. When the land grew barren from the mother’s blood still on him, an oracle sent him to a river-mouth not yet existing at the matricide’s time—the silt of Achelous—where he married Callirhoe. Callirhoe demanded the necklace; Alcmaeon returned to Psophis feigning a dedication to Delphi, reclaimed the jewels from Phegeus’s house, and was ambushed and killed by Phegeus’s sons. Callirhoe then prayed Zeus to age her sons Acarnan and Amphoterus overnight so they could avenge their father—leading to the deaths of Phegeus’s line. Catalogue the Phegeus marriage, betrayal over the necklace, and Alcmaeon’s death at Psophis apart from Eriphyle’s murder and from the Acarnanian naming.