What Klytaimnestra was to the generation of Odysseus Eriphyle had been to the previous generation, namely the world’s worst wife and mother. And as with Klytaimnestra, the manner in which the full horror of Eriphyle’s miscreance came to pass involved multitudes of other people and a great war. Apollodoros tells the story in his Library:
Now Eteocles and Polynices made a compact with each other concerning the kingdom [of Thebes, which they had inherited from their father Oedipus] and resolved that each should rule alternately for a year at a time. Some say that Polynices was the first to rule, and that after a year he handed over the kingdom to Eteocles; but some say that Eteocles was the first to rule, and would not hand over the kingdom. So, being banished from Thebes, Polynices came to Argos, taking with him the necklace and the robe [which had been wedding gifts to his bride Harmonia by the mythic founder of the Theban state, Kadmos].The king of Argos was Adrastus, son of Talaus; and Polynices went up to his palace by night and engaged in a fight with Tydeus, son of Oeneus, who had fled from Calydon. At the sudden outcry Adrastus appeared and parted them, and remembering the words of a certain seer who told him to yoke his daughters in marriage to a boar and a lion, he accepted them both as bridegrooms, because they had on their shields, the one the forepart of a boar, and the other the forepart of a lion. And Tydeus married Deipyle, and Polynices married Argia; and Adrastus promised that he would restore them both to their native lands. And first he was eager to march against Thebes, and he mustered the chiefs.
But Amphiaraus, son of Oicles, being a seer and foreseeing that all who joined in the expedition except Adrastus were destined to perish, shrank from it himself and discouraged the rest. However, Polynices went to Iphis, son of Alector, and begged to know how Amphiaraus could be compelled to go to the war. He answered that it could be done if Eriphyle [who was Adrastus’ sister and wife of Amphiaraus] got the necklace. Now Amphiaraus had forbidden Eriphyle to accept gifts from Polynices; but Polynices gave her the necklace and begged her to persuade Amphiaraus to go to the war; for the decision lay with her, because once, when a difference arose between him and Adrastus, he had made it up with him and sworn to let Eriphyle decide any future dispute he might have with Adrastus.
Accordingly, when war was to be made on Thebes, and the measure was advocated by Adrastus and opposed by Amphiaraus, Eriphyle accepted the necklace and persuaded him to march with Adrastus. Thus forced to go to the war, Amphiaraus laid his commands on his sons, that, when they were grown up, they should slay their mother and march against Thebes.
Having mustered an army with seven leaders, Adrastus hastened to wage war on Thebes. The leaders were these: Adrastus, son of Talaus; Amphiaraus, son of Oicles; Capaneus, son of Hipponous; Hippomedon, son of Aristomachus, but some say of Talaus. These came from Argos; but Polynices, son of Oedipus, came from Thebes; Tydeus, son of Oeneus, was an Aetolian; Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion, was an Arcadian. Some, however, do not reckon Tydeus and Polynices among them, but include Eteoclus, son of Iphis, and Mecisteus in the list of the seven.
[In the resulting war against Thebes all of the Seven together with their entire armies perished; only Adrastus escaped alive, having fled on the flying horse Arion...]
Ten years afterwards the sons of the fallen, called the Epigoni, purposed to march against Thebes to avenge the deaths of their fathers; and when they consulted the oracle, the god predicted victory under the leadership of Alcmaeon [the son of Amphiaraus]. So Alcmaeon joined the expedition, though he was loath to lead the army till he had punished his mother [as he had sworn to his father that he would do]; for Eriphyle had received the robe from Thersander, son of Polynices, and had persuaded her sons also to go to the war.
Having chosen Alcmaeon as their leader, they made war on Thebes. The men who took part in the expedition were these: Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, sons of Amphiaraus; Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Diomedes, son of Tydeus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Thersander, son of Polynices; and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus. They first laid waste the surrounding villages; then, when the Thebans advanced against them, led by Laodamas, son of Eteocles, they fought bravely, and though Laodamas killed Aegialeus, he was himself killed by Alcmaeon, and after his death the Thebans fled in a body within the walls. But as Tiresias told them to send a herald to treat with the Argives, and themselves to take to flight, they did send a herald to the enemy, and, mounting their children and women on wagons, themselves fled from the city. When they had come by night to the spring called Tilphussa, Tiresias drank of it and expired. After travelling far the Thebans built the city of Hestiaea and took up their abode there. But the Argives, on learning afterwards the flight of the Thebans, entered the city and collected the booty, and pulled down the walls. But they sent a portion of the booty to Apollo at Delphi and with it Manto, daughter of Tiresias; for they had vowed that, if they took Thebes, they would dedicate to him the fairest of the spoils.
After the capture of Thebes, when Alcmaeon learned that his mother Eriphyle had been bribed to his undoing also, he was more incensed than ever, and in accordance with an oracle given to him by Apollo he killed his mother [for his giddy and treacherous mother had persuaded Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, as she had formerly persuaded her husband Amphiaraus, to go to war against powerful Thebes, the bauble of Harmonia’s necklace and the geegaw of Harmonia’s robe being more precious to her than the lives of her own husband and sons]. Some say that he killed her in conjunction with his brother Amphilochus, others that he did it alone.
But Alcmaeon was visited by the Erinys of his mother’s murder, and going mad he first repaired to Oicles in Arcadia, and thence to Phegeus at Psophis. And having been purified by him he married Arsinoe, daughter of Phegeus, and give her the necklace and the robe. But afterwards the ground became barren on his account, and the god bade him in an oracle to depart to [the river god] Achelous and there to dwell upon ground that had been formed by the river [i.e., from the river’s silt] after the time of the murder of his mother. At first he repaired to Oeneus at Calydon and was entertained by him; then he went to the Thesprotians, but was driven away from their country; and finally he went to the springs of Achelous, and was purified by him, and received Callirrhoe, his daughter, to wife. Moreover he colonized the land which the Achelous had formed by its silt, and he took up his abode there.
But afterwards Callirrhoe coveted the necklace and robe, and said she would not live with him if she did not get them. So away Alcmaeon hied to Psophis and told Phegeus how it had been predicted that he should be rid of his madness when he had brought the necklace and the robe to Delphi and dedicated them. Phegeus believed him and gave them to him. But a servant having let out that he was taking the things to Callirrhoe, Phegeus commanded his sons, and they lay in wait and killed him. When Arsinoe upbraided them, the sons of Phegeus clapped her into a chest and carried her to Tegea and gave her as a slave to Agapenor, falsely accusing her of Alcmaeon’s murder.
Being apprized of Alcmaeon’s untimely end and courted by Zeus, Callirrhoe requested that the sons she had by Alcmacon might be full-grown in order to avenge their father’s murder. And being suddenly full-grown, the sons went forth to right their father’s wrong. Now Pronous and Agenor, the sons of Phegeus, carrying the necklace and robe to Delphi to dedicate them, turned in at the house of Agapenor at the same time as Amphoterus and Acarnan, the sons of Alcmaeon; and the sons of Alcmaeon killed their father’s murderers, and going to Psophis and entering the palace they slew both Phegeus and his wife. They were pursued as far as Tegea, but saved by the intervention of the Tegeans and some Argives, and the Psophidians took to flight.
Having acquainted their mother with these things, they went to Delphi and dedicated the necklace and robe according to the injunction of Achelous. Then they journeyed to Epirus, collected settlers, and colonized Acarnania.
But Euripides says that in the time of his madness Alcmaeon begat two children, Amphilochus and a daughter Tisiphone, by Manto, daughter of Tiresias, and that he brought the babes to Corinth and gave them to Creon, king of Corinth, to bring up; and that on account of her extraordinary comeliness Tisiphone was sold as a slave by Creon’s spouse, who feared that Creon might make her his wedded wife. But Alcmaeon bought her and kept her as a hand-maid, not knowing that she was his daughter, and coming to Corinth to get back his children he recovered his son also.