Alcathous was 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...

 the son of Pelops

Pelops

In Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....

 and Hippodamia

Hippodamia

Hippodamia was a daughter of King Oenomaus and wife of Pelops with whom her offspring were Thyestes, Atreus, Pittheus, Alcathous, Troezen, Hippalcimus, Copreus, Astydameia, Nicippe, Eurydice and others....

, and brother of Atreus

Atreus

In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae....

 and Thyestes

Thyestes

In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, King of Olympia, and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. Thyestes and his twin brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia...

. He first married Pyrgo and afterwards Euaechme, and was the father of Echepolis (Ἐχεπολις), Callipolis (Καλλίπολις), Iphinoe (Ἰφινόη), Periboea

Periboea

In Greek mythology, nine people shared the name Periboea .#Periboea was the daughter of either King Cychreus of Salamis or of Alcathous, her mother in the latter case being either Pyrgo or Evaechme, daughter of Megareus. She married Telamon and became and mother of Ajax...

 (Περίβοια), and Automedusa (Αὐτομέδουσα).

Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

 relates that after Euippus, son of king Megareus

Megareus of Onchestus

In Greek mythology, Megareus of Onchestus was king of Onchestus in Boeotia. He was either son of Poseidon and Oenope, daughter of Epopeus, or of Onchestus , or of Apollo, or of Aegeus, or of Hippomenes. He came with his army to the assistance of Nisos, husband of his sister Abrota, against Minos...

, was killed by the Cythaeronian lion, Megareus, whose elder son Timalcus had likewise fallen by the hands of Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

, offered his daughter Euaechme and his kingdom to anyone who could slay the lion. Alcathous undertook the task, killed the lion, and thus obtained Euaechme for his wife, and afterwards became the successor of Megareus. In gratitude for this success, he built at Megara

Megara

Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...

 a temple of Artemis

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

 Agrotera

Agrotera

Agrotera was an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis, and the most important goddess to Attic hunters.At Agrae on the Ilissos, where she was believed to have first hunted after her arrival from Delos, Artemis Agrotera had a temple, dating to the 5th century BC, with a statue carrying a bow...

 and Apollo

Apollo

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

 Agraeus

Agraeus

Agraeus was the name of a number of personages from ancient myth, but was primarily known as an epithet of the god Apollo in Greek mythology, which meant "the hunter". After Apollo had killed the lion of Kithairon, a temple was erected to him by Alcathous, son of Pelops, at Megara under the name...

. He also restored the walls of Megara, which had been destroyed by the Cretans

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. In this work he was said to have been assisted by Apollo, and the stone upon which the god used to place his lyre

Lyre

The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...

 while he was at work, was even in late times believed to produce a sound similar to that of a lyre when struck.

Echepolis, one of the sons of Alcathous, was killed during the Calydonian hunt in Aetolia

Aetolia

Aetolia is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania.-Geography:...

, and when his brother Callipolis hastened to carry the sad tidings to his father, he found him engaged in offering a sacrifice to Apollo, and thinking it unfit to offer sacrifices at such a moment, he snatched away the wood from the altar. Alcathous imagining this to be an act of deliberate sacrilege, killed his son on the spot with a piece of wood. The acropolis of Megara was called by a name derived from that of Alcathous.

Alcathous was grandfather of the hero Ajax

Ajax (mythology)

Ajax or Aias was a mythological Greek hero, the son of Telamon and Periboea and king of Salamis. He plays an important role in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus , he is called "Telamonian Ajax," "Greater...

, via his daughter Periboea, who married Telamon

Telamon

In Greek mythology, Telamon , son of the king Aeacus, of Aegina, and Endeis and brother of Peleus, accompanied Jason as one of his Argonauts, and was present at the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. In the Iliad he was the father of Greek heroes Ajax the Great and Teucer the Archer by different...

.