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In Greek mythology, Amphiaraus (; Amphiaraos, "doubly cursed" or "twice Ares-like") 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. Both Zeus and Apollo favored him, and Zeus gave him his oracular talent. In the generation before the Trojan War, Amphiaraos was one of the heroes present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
The material of the tragic war of the Seven Against Thebes was taken up from several points of view by each of the three great Greek tragic poets. Eriphyle persuaded Amphiaraus to take part in the raiding venture, against his better judgment, for he knew he would die. She had been persuaded by Polynices, who offered her the necklace of Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite, once part of the bride-price of Cadmus, as a bribe for her advocacy. Amphiaraus reluctantly agreed to join the doomed undertaking, but aware of his wife's corruption, asked his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus to avenge his inevitable death by killing her, should he not return. On the way to the battle, Amphiaraus repeatedly warned the other warriors that the expedition would fail, and blamed Tydeus for starting it. He would eventually prevent Tydeus from being immortalized by Athena because of this. Despite this, he was possibly the greatest leader in the attack. During the battle, Amphiaraus killed Melanippus. In the battle, Amphiaraus sought to flee from Periclymenus, the "very famous" son of Poseidon, who wanted to kill him, but Zeus threw his thunderbolt, and the earth opened to swallow Amphiaraus together with his chariot. Thus chthonic hero Amphiaraus was propitiated and consulted at his sanctuary.
Alcmaeon killed his mother when Amphiaraus died. He was pursued by the Erinyes as he fled across Greece, eventually landing at the court of King Phegeus, who gave him his daughter Alphesiboea in marriage. Exhausted, Alcmaeon asked an oracle how to avoid the Erinyes and was told that he needed to stop where the sun was not shining when he killed his mother. That was the mouth of the river Achelous, which had been silted up. Achelous himself, god of that river, promised him his daughter, Callirrhoe in marriage if Alcmaeon would retrieve the necklace and clothes which Eriphyle wore when she persuaded Amphiaraus to take part in the battle. Alcmaeon had given these jewels to Phegeus who had his sons kill Alcmaeon when he discovered Alcmaeon's plan.
In a sanctuary at Amphiareion of Oropos, northwest of Attica, Amphiaraus was worshipped with a hero cult. He was considered a healing and fortune-telling god and was associated with Asclepius. The healing and fortune-telling aspect of Amphiaraus came from his ancestry: he was related to the great seer Melampus. After making a sacrifice of a few coins, or sometimes a ram, at the temple, a petitioner slept inside and received a dream detailing the solution to the problem.
Etruscan tradition inherited by the Romans is doubtless the origin of a son for Amphiaraus named Catillus who escaped from the slaughter at Thebes and led an expedition to Italy, where he founded a colony where eventually appeared the city of Tibur (now Tivoli), named after his eldest son Tiburtus.
In certain traditions he was said to have had a daughter, Alexida.
Amphiaraus (, Amphiaraos) is a lost Greek play by the Athenian poet Sophocles. It is believed to have been a satyr play, although it is not clear which incident pertaining to the title character was the subject of the play, nor even which incident would lend itself to satyr play treatment.
One fragment of this play is extant. This fragment was translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones as "The sentinel crab of this prophetic chorus..." A one sentence fragment of Sophocles (fragment 958) telling of the death of Amphiaraus – that the ground of Thebes opened up to receive him and his arms and his horses and chariot – may also be from Amphiaraus, but it may belong to one of several other plays Sophocles wrote about Amphiaraus and his son Alcmaeon. In addition, second century Greek rhetorician Athenaeus noted that within "the satyr play Amphiaraus," Sophocles had a character who "dances the letters." This comment by Athenaeus came after he had noted a number of instances within other plays in which an illiterate character described the letters of a word that he could not read himself, and that the dance by the Sophocles character was "similar."
Within Greek mythology, the title character Amphiaraus had not wanted to take part in an attack against the city of Thebes, led by his wife's brother Adrastus and by Polynices, since Amphiaraus knew the attack was doomed. This attack was dramatized by Aeschylus in his play Seven Against Thebes, and the aftermath was dramatized by Sophocles himself in Antigone. Polynices bribed Amphiaraus' wife Eriphyle, who was also Adrastus' sister, to coerce Amphiaraus to take part in the attack. Amphiaraus had charged their son Alcmaeon to avenge him on Eriphyle, and after Alcmaeon killed Eriphyle, he was pursued by the Erinyes, similar to the fate of Orestes after killing Clytemnestra.
One episode from the myth of Amphiaraus that scholars believe may have lent itself to the plot of this satyr play is the time when Amphiaraus went into hiding to avoid taking part in the attack against Thebes. Another episode that has been postulated as the basis for this play is Amphiaraus role in founding the Nemean Games. Since Sophocles wrote several play involving the myth of Amphiaraus and Alcmaeon, it is possible that Amphiaraus was the satyr play following a connected trilogy related to this myth. If so, the tragedies in the trilogy may have included Eriphyle, Epigoni, in which Alcmaeon kills Eriphyle, and Alcmaeon, which may have involved the sequel to the killing, including the pursuit of Alcmaeon by the Erinyes, his eventual purification, and subsequent death.