Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

When Phegeus’s sons killed Alcmaeon over Harmonia’s necklace, Callirhoe begged Zeus to make her infant sons Acarnan and Amphoterus suddenly grown. Zeus granted it; the youths slew Phegeus’s sons (and in some tellings Phegeus and his wife), recovered or pursued the necklace toward Delphi, and escaped. They then settled the northwestern Greek coast across from the islands; the country took its name Acarnania from Acarnan. Thucydides preserves the tale as local lore explaining why Alcmaeon could purify himself only on land formed after his crime—the Achelous silt—and why Acarnanians claim this Heraclid–Argive stemma. Catalogue the naming and vengeance apart from Alcmaeon’s death at Psophis.