Tisiphone (daughter of Alcmaeon)
Daughter of Alcmaeon, sold as a slave, reunited with her father.
Tisiphone is a figure in Greek mythology, the daughter of the Argive hero Alcmaeon and Manto, daughter of Tiresias. As an infant she was entrusted to the royal couple of Corinth, but later sold into slavery by the queen. Her story is known from second-century sources and originally appeared in the lost fifth-century BC drama Alcmaeon in Corinth.
Quick Facts
- Parents
- Alcmaeon and Manto
- Sibling
- Amphilochus
- Foster father
- Creon (king of Corinth)
Facts from the source article.
Mythology
According to the second-century author Apollodorus, Alcmaeon, while mad after murdering his mother Eriphyle, fathered two children on Manto: Tisiphone and her brother Amphilochus, possibly twins, likely born at Delphi where Manto then lived. Alcmaeon brought the infants to Corinth and entrusted them to King Creon for safekeeping. As Tisiphone grew into an exceedingly beautiful maiden, Creon's wife, fearing her husband might set her aside to marry Tisiphone, sold the girl into slavery.
The buyer happened to be Alcmaeon himself, who did not recognize his daughter and kept her as a maid. Alcmaeon also recovered his son from Corinth. Apollodorus attributes this version to the lost tragedy Alcmaeon in Corinth by Euripides, first produced posthumously around 405 BC. The story may derive from the lost epic Alcmeonis or be an original creation by Euripides.
Surviving fragments suggest the play opened with Apollo narrating events, followed by Alcmaeon's arrival in Corinth with Tisiphone, where father and daughter recognized each other, likely through the queen's revelation. Creon then fled into exile, and Amphilochus learned that Alcmaeon, not Creon, was his true father.
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