Amphiaraus

Amphiaraus was a famous seer of Argos, son of Oicles, and one of the Seven Against Thebes. Knowing that the expedition would end in disaster, he opposed it, but his wife Eriphyle, bribed with the necklace of Harmonia, forced him to go. At Thebes Zeus split the earth with a thunderbolt and swallowed him alive with his chariot, and afterwards he was worshipped as a hero and prophetic god, most famously at Oropos.

Family and Early Life

In the Odyssey Amphiaraus belongs to the line of the seer Melampus: Melampus was the father of Antiphates, Antiphates of Oicles, and Oicles of Amphiaraus (Homer, Odyssey 15.225–244, especially 15.242–244). Pausanias names his mother as Hypermnestra (Pausanias 2.21.2), and Diodorus calls her the daughter of Thespius (Diodorus Siculus 4.68.5). Amphiaraus married Eriphyle, the sister of Adrastus and daughter of Talaus (Apollodorus, Library 1.9.13). Their children were Alcmaeon and Amphilochus (Homer, Odyssey 15.248), and daughters named Eurydice and Demonassa (Pausanias 5.17.7).

Homer says that Zeus and Apollo loved Amphiaraus dearly, but that he did not live to old age: he died at Thebes because of a woman’s gifts (Homer, Odyssey 15.244–247). Apollodorus lists him among the heroes of the Calydonian Boar hunt and among the Argonauts (Apollodorus, Library 1.8.2, 1.9.16).

Rival of Adrastus

Pindar says that Adrastus once fled from Argos before the bold-minded Amphiaraus and a dangerous civil strife, when the sons of Talaus lost their rule (Pindar, Nemean 9.13–17). Apollodorus and Diodorus tell how the two men were reconciled: Amphiaraus swore to let his wife Eriphyle, Adrastus’ sister, settle any future dispute between them (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.2; Diodorus Siculus 4.65.6). That oath later cost him his life.

The Seven Against Thebes

When Adrastus gathered seven leaders to restore Polynices to Thebes, Amphiaraus, being a seer, foresaw that every one of them except Adrastus would die, and he held back and tried to discourage the others (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.2). Polynices learned from Iphis that Amphiaraus could be forced to go if Eriphyle received the necklace. Although Amphiaraus had forbidden her to accept gifts from Polynices, she took the necklace and, as arbiter in the old quarrel, decided that her husband must march. Amphiaraus then told his sons to kill their mother when they were grown up and to march against Thebes (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.2; Diodorus Siculus 4.65.5–6).

In Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, a messenger describes Amphiaraus at the Homoloid gate as a prophet and a brave fighter, who rebukes Tydeus and Polynices bitterly for the war (Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 568–596). Apollodorus places him at the Proetid gate (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.6). In Apollodorus’ account of the fighting, Tydeus lay wounded by Melanippus and Athena brought a drug to make him immortal. Amphiaraus hated Tydeus for having pushed the Argives into the war, so he cut off the head of Melanippus, whom Tydeus had killed, and gave it to him. Tydeus split it open and swallowed the brains, and Athena in disgust withheld her gift (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8).

Death

Amphiaraus fled beside the river Ismenus. Before Periclymenus could wound him in the back, Zeus split the earth with a thunderbolt, and Amphiaraus vanished into it with his chariot and his charioteer Baton (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8). Pindar likewise says that Zeus cleft the earth and buried him with his horses before his warrior spirit could be shamed by a spear wound in the back (Pindar, Nemean 9.24–27). Adrastus, the only leader to escape, spoke of him as “the eye of my army”, a good seer and a good spearman (Pindar, Olympian 6.12–17). Pausanias saw near Thebes a small enclosure with pillars where the earth was believed to have opened, and says the people of Tanagra gave a different place on the road from Thebes to Chalcis (Pausanias 9.8.3, 9.19.4, 1.34.2). Apollodorus adds that Zeus made him immortal (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8).

Eriphyle and Alcmaeon

Ten years after the first war, the sons of the fallen, the Epigoni, marched on Thebes, and Apollo’s oracle named Alcmaeon their leader. Eriphyle had again been bribed, this time with Harmonia’s robe from Thersander, to send her sons to war. Alcmaeon, learning that she had been bribed to ruin him as well, killed her in obedience to Apollo’s oracle, as his father had commanded, and was pursued by the Fury of his mother’s murder (Apollodorus, Library 3.7.2–5). His story is told on the page of Alcmaeon.

Worship

Pausanias says that Amphiaraus’ divinity was first established by the Oropians, from whom the other Greeks received the cult. At Oropos he had a temple, a white marble statue and an altar, and the sanctuary worked as a dream oracle: a consultant purified himself, sacrificed a ram, spread the skin and slept on it to await a dream. Those cured of illness through the god threw coins into his spring (Pausanias 1.34.1–5). There was also a sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Argos, opposite the tomb of Eriphyle (Pausanias 2.23.2).

Amphiaraus Sources

Homer, Odyssey 15.225–248; Pindar, Olympian 6.12–17, Nemean 9.13–17, 9.24–27; Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 568–596; Apollodorus, Library 1.8.2, 1.9.13, 1.9.16, 3.6.2, 3.6.6, 3.6.8, 3.7.2–5; Diodorus Siculus 4.65.5–6, 4.68.5; Pausanias 1.34.1–5, 2.21.2, 2.23.2, 5.17.7, 9.8.3, 9.19.4.

See Also: Adrastus, Calydonian Boar, Seven Against Thebes, Harmonia, Necklace of Harmonia, Melanippus, Alcmaeon, Eriphyle, Epigoni