Eriphyle, bribed by
Polynices with the necklace of the goddess
Harmonia, persuaded her husband Amphiaraus to join the expedition of the
Seven against Thebes. Amphiaraus, knowing that he would die in the battle, reluctantly agreed to go but asked his two sons to avenge his foreseen death. At Thebes, Amphiaraus ended up in combat with
Periclymenus, a demigod son of
Poseidon. He attempted to flee but the god
Zeus threw a bolt of lightning which opened the earth beneath him, swallowing the Argive and his chariot. Amphilochus's brother Alcmaeon then slew his mother and exiled himself from the kingdom. As king of
Argos, Amphilochus was sometimes named among
Helen's suitors. After the
Trojan War, he was generally said to have abandoned his former realm and to have eventually settled the territory along the
Ambracian Gulf, which became known as
Amphilochia in his honor. Its capital was a second Argos, which is distinguished as the
Amphilochian Argos. (Others credit this settlement to
his nephew.) although this also seems to have been a pre-Greek settlement. Another was the oracle of
Apollo at
Colophon in
Lydia, which Amphilochus was said to have founded with his half-brother
Mopsus, the son of Amphiaraus and
Manto.
Herodotus also credited Amphilochus with the establishment of
Posideium on Syria's Cilician border. Amphilochus was variously said to have been killed by Apollo or to have simultaneously killed and been killed by his half-brother Mopsus. Either story was also sometimes ascribed to
his nephew instead. ==Notes==