[667] Hyginus gives the fable briefly (f. 73; see also Asclepiadês, ap. Schol. Odyss. xi. 326). In like manner, in the case of the matricide of Orestês, Apollo not only sanctions, but enjoins the deed; but his protection against the avenging Erinnyês is very tardy, not taking effect until after Orestês has been long persecuted and tormented by them (see Æschyl. Eumen. 76, 197 462). In the _Alkmæôn_ of the later tragic writer Thodektês, a distinction was drawn: the gods had decreed that Eriphylê should die, but not that Alkmæôn should kill her (Aristot. Rhetoric. ii. 24). Astydamas altered the story still more in his tragedy, and introduced Alkmæôn as killing his mother ignorantly and without being aware who she was (Aristot. Poetic. c. 27). The murder of Eriphylê by her son was one of the παρειλήμμενοι μῦθοι which could not be departed from; but interpretations and qualifications were resorted to, in order to prevent it from shocking the softened feelings of the spectators: see the criticism of Aristotle on the _Alkmæôn_ of Euripidês (Ethic. Nicom. iii. 1, 8). [668] Ephorus ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 232. [669] Thucyd. ii. 68-102. [670] Athenæ. _l. c._ There were several other legends respecting the distracted Alkmæôn, either appropriated or invented by the Attic tragedians. He went to Phêgeus, king of Psôphis in Arcadia, whose daughter Arsinoê he married, giving as a nuptial present the necklace of Eriphylê. Being however unable to remain there, in consequence of the unremitting persecutions of the maternal Erinnys, he sought shelter at the residence of king Achelôus, whose daughter Kallirhoê he made his wife, and on whose soil he obtained repose.[671] But Kallirhoê would not be satisfied without the possession of the necklace of Eriphylê, and Alkmæôn went back to Psôphis to fetch it, where Phêgeus and his sons slew him. He had left twin sons, infants, with Kallirhoê, 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, proceeded into Arcadia, slew the murderers of their father, and brought away the necklace of Eriphylê, which they carried to Delphi.[672] [671] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 5-6; Pausan. viii. 24, 4. These two authors have preserved the story of the Akarnanians and the old form of the legend, representing Alkmæôn as having found shelter at the abode of the person or king Achelôus, and married his daughter: Thucydidês omits the _personality_ of Achelôus, and merely announces the wanderer as having settled on certain new islands deposited by the river.