In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Amphilochus was the younger son of Amphiaraus

Amphiaraus

In Greek mythology, Amphiaraus was the son of Oecles and Hypermnestra, and husband of Eriphyle. Amphiaraus was the King of Argos along with Adrastus— the brother of Amphiaraus' wife, Eriphyle— and Iphis. Amphiaraus was a seer, and greatly honored in his time...

 and Eriphyle

Eriphyle

In Greek mythology, Eriphyle , daughter of Talaus, was the mother of Alcmaeon and the wife of Amphiaraus. Eriphyle persuaded Amphiaraus to take part in the raid that initiated the mythic tale of the Seven Against Thebes, though she knew he would die...

 and the brother of Alcmaeon.

Eriphyle persuaded Amphiaraus to take part in the Seven Against Thebes

Seven Against Thebes

The Seven against Thebes is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the Oedipodea. It concerns the battle between an Argive army led by Polynices and the army of Thebes led by Eteocles and his supporters. The trilogy won...

 raid, though he knew he would die. She had been persuaded by Polynices

Polynices

In Greek mythology, Polynices or Polyneices was the son of Oedipus and Jocasta. His wife was Argea. His father, Oedipus, was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, and was expelled from Thebes, leaving his sons Eteocles and Polynices to rule...

, who offered her the necklace of Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

 and Ares

Ares

Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...

. Amphiaraus reluctantly agreed to join the fatal battle and asked his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, to avenge his foreseen death. In the battle, Amphiaraus sought to flee from Periclymenus

Periclymenus

In Greek mythology, the name Periclymenus may refer to:*A son of Neleus and Chloris. He was one of the Argonauts. Poseidon gave him the ability to shapeshift into various animals. He was killed by Heracles at Pylos, although he tried to escape in the form of an eagle. His offspring were Erginus...

, the son of Poseidon

Poseidon

Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

, who wanted to kill him, but Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

 threw his thunder and the earth opened to swallow Amphiaraus together with his chariot. Alcmaeon killed his mother and exiled himself.

Argive Amphilochus was a prominent seer, and founded several oracle

Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

s, most importantly at Mallus

Mallus

Mallus or Mallos was an ancient city of Cilicia Campestris lying near the mouth of the Pyramus river, in Anatolia. In ancient times, the city was situated at the mouth of the Pyramus , on a hill opposite Magarsus which served as its port. The district was called from it, Mallotis...

, a pre-Greek site in Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

, and, acting with his half-brother Mopsus

Mopsus

Mopsus or Mopsos was the name of two famous seers in Greek mythology. A historical/legendary Mopsus was the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of Pamphylia and Cilicia during the early Iron Age.-Son of Manto and Rhacius or Apollo:Mopsus, a celebrated seer and...

, the oracle of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 at Colophon in Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

. According to Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

, Amphilochus travelled farther east and founded a Posideion just beyond the mountain-pass "gate" in the Amanus between Cilicia and Syria.

Amphilochus is named among the suitors of Helen in some accounts. After the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

, according to Thucydides (2.68), not caring for the situation in Argos

Argos

Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...

, he founded "Amphilochian Argos

Amphilochian Argos

Amphilochian Argos was the most important city in Amphilochia in Ancient Greece, situated on the Ambracian Gulf.-Foundation legend:It was, according to Greek mythology, founded by Amphilochus after the Trojan War...

 and the whole region of Amphilochia" on the Ambracian Gulf

Ambracian Gulf

The Ambracian Gulf, also known as the Gulf of Arta or the Gulf of Actium, and in some official documents as the Amvrakikos Gulf , is a gulf of the Ionian Sea in northwestern Greece. About long and wide, it is one of the largest enclosed gulfs in Greece...

, a non-Greek settlement later Hellenized by its Ambraciot neighbors. Also after the Trojan War, he may have been killed either by Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

, or by his half-brother Mopsus

Mopsus

Mopsus or Mopsos was the name of two famous seers in Greek mythology. A historical/legendary Mopsus was the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of Pamphylia and Cilicia during the early Iron Age.-Son of Manto and Rhacius or Apollo:Mopsus, a celebrated seer and...

, whom he reciprocally killed in single combat; however, these myths may concern his nephew, also named Amphilochus

Amphilochus (son of Alcmaeon)

In Greek mythology, in a myth assigned to Euripides by Apollodorus, Amphilochus is the son of Alcmaeon, one of the Epigoni, and Manto, the daughter of the Theban seer Teiresias....

.