Alcmaeon

/alk mee"euhn/, n. Class. Myth.

a son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle who commanded the second expedition against Thebes. He killed his mother for sending his father to certain death and was driven mad by the Furies.

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or Alcmeon

In Greek mythology, the son of the seer Amphiaraus.

The seer had been persuaded by his wife to join the expedition of the Seven Against Thebes. On realizing that he would die, he charged Alcmaeon and his other sons with avenging his death. Alcmaeon led the sons of the seven in the destruction of Thebes and then obeyed his father's injunction to kill his mother, a crime for which the Furies drove him mad. He was purified by King Phegeus of Psophis, whose daughter he married but subsequently killed. Following the advice of an oracle, he settled on an island at the mouth of the Achelous River, where he married again, but was killed by Phegeus and his sons.

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▪ Greek mythology

also spelled  Alcmeon,  

      in Greek legend, the son of the seer Amphiaraus and his wife Eriphyle. When Amphiaraus set out with the expedition of the Seven Against Thebes, which he knew would be fatal to him, he commanded his sons to avenge his death by slaying Eriphyle (who had been bribed by Polyneices with the necklace of Harmonia to persuade her husband to fight) and by undertaking a second expedition against Thebes. After leading the Epigoni (the sons of the Seven) in the destruction of Thebes, Alcmaeon carried out his father's injunctions by killing his mother, but as a punishment he was driven mad and pursued by the Erinyes (goddesses of vengeance) from place to place.

      On his arrival at Psophis in Arcadia, he was purified by its king, Phegeus, whose daughter Arsinoë (or Alphesiboea) he married, making her a present of the fatal necklace and the robe of Harmonia, which brought misfortune to all who possessed them. The land was cursed with barrenness, and an oracle declared that Alcmaeon would not 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 Achelous River, where an island had recently been formed. There he settled and, forgetting his wife, married Callirrhoë, the daughter of the river god. Callirrhoë coveted the necklace, and Alcmaeon, having returned to get it from his wife, was killed by Arsinoë's brothers (Phegeus's sons). On Alcmaeon's death, Callirrhoë prayed that her two young sons might grow to manhood at once and avenge their father. Her prayer was granted, and her sons, Amphoterus and Acarnan, slew Phegeus. After his death Alcmaeon was worshiped at Thebes; his tomb was at Psophis. His story was the subject of the modern parody “A Fragment of a Greek Tragedy,” by A.E. Housman.

▪ Greek philosopher and physiologist

also spelled  Alcmeon  

flourished 6th century BC

      Greek philosopher and physiologist of the academy at Croton (now Crotone, southern Italy), the first person recorded to have practiced dissection of human bodies for research purposes. He may also have been the first to attempt vivisection. Alcmaeon inferred that the brain was the centre of intelligence and that the soul was the source of life. Applying the Pythagorean principle of cosmic harmony between pairs of contraries, he posited that health consists in the isonomy (equilibrium) of the body's component contraries (e.g., dry-humid, warm-cold, sweet-bitter), thus anticipating Hippocrates' similar teaching.

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