Alcmaeon

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Greek philosopher and physician (fl.450bc)

Alcmaeon was born in Croton (now Crotone in Italy). Details of his work come from the surviving fragments of his book and through references by later authors, including Aristotle. He was probably influenced by the school of thought founded by Pythagoras in Croton and originated the notion that health was dependent on maintaining a balance between all the pairs of opposite qualities in the body, i.e. wet and dry, hot and cold, etc. Imbalance of these qualities resulted in illness. This theory was later developed by Hippocrates and his followers.

Alcmaeon performed dissections of animals and possibly of human cadavers also. He demonstrated various anatomical features of the eye and ear, including their connections with the brain, and correctly asserted that the brain was the control center of bodily functions and the seat of intelligence.

Alcmaeon or Alcmeon, in Greek myth, son of Amphiaraus. In accordance with his father's command he became leader of the expedition of the Epigonoi which took Thebes. On his return, in further execution of his father's commands, he avenged him by slaying his own mother Eriphylē (or, in some sources, the matricide came before the expedition). For this murder he was (like Orestes) pursued from place to place by the Furies. At Psophis in Arcadia he received partial purification from Phegeus, whose daughter Arsinoē, or Alphesiboea, he married. To her he gave the necklace of Harmonia (see CADMUS (1)). But the crops of the country began to fail, and Alcmaeon set out again to discover a land on which the sun had not shone when he murdered his mother. This he found in an island newly thrown up at the mouth of the river Achelōus, between Acarnania and Aetolia in Greece. Here he married Callirrhoē, a daughter of Achelous. She in turn begged for the necklace of Harmonia, and Alcmaeon obtained it from Phegeus on a false pretence. But the brothers of Arsinoe waylaid and killed him, afterwards shutting their sister up in a chest because she protested, and selling her as a slave. Acarnan and Amphoteros, the sons of Alcmaeon and Callirrhoe, avenged their father by killing Phegeus and his sons; the fatal necklace was dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. A later story tells that it was stolen by a Phocian when Phocis was at war with Philip of Macedon, and brought ill luck to the thief.

Alcmaeon, Alkmaion, Alcmeon, or Alkmaon may refer to:

• Alcmaeon, the great-grandson of Nestor, from whom the Alcmaeonidae claimed descent.
• Alcmaeon (mythology), one of the Epigoni
• Alcmaeon in Corinth, a lost play by Eurpides
• Alcmaeon (King of Athens), the last king of Athens
• Alcmaeon, son of Megacles, 6th century BC commander during the Cirrhaean War
• Alcmaeon of Croton (mid-fifth century B.C.), an Ancient Greek philosopher and medical theorist

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