（Ἀλκμήνη), a daughter of Electryon, king of Messene, by
Anaxo, the daughter of Alcaeus. (Apollod. 2.4.5.) According
to other accounts her mother was called Lysidice (Schol. ad
Pind. Ol. 7.49; Plut. Thes. 7), or Eurydice. (Diod. 4.9.)
The poet Asius represented Alcmene as a daughter of
Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. (Paus. 5.17.4.) Apollodorus
mentions ten brothers of Alcmene, who, with the exception of
one, Licymnius, fell in a contest with the sons of
Pterelaus, who had carried off the cattle of Electryon.
Electryon, on setting out to avenge the death of his sons,
left his kingdom and his daughter Alcmene to Amphitryon,
who, unintentionally, killed Electryon. Sthenelus thereupon
expelled Amphitryon, who, together with Alcmene and
Licymnius, went to Thebes. Alcmene declared that she would
marry him who should avenge the death of her brothers.
Amphitryon undertook the task, and invited Creon of Thebes
to assist him. During his absence, Zeus, in the disguise of
Amphitryon, visited Alcmene, and, pretending to be her
husband, related to her in what way he had avenged the death
of her brothers. (Apollod. 2.4.6-8; Ov. Amor. 1.13. 45;
Diod. 4.9; Hyg. Fab. 29; Lucian, Dialog. Deor. 10.) When
Amphitryon himself returned on the next day and wanted to
give an account of his achievements, she was surprised at
the repetition, but Teiresias solved the mystery. Alcmene
became the mother of Heracles by Zeus, and of Iphicles by
Amphitryon. Hera, jealous of Alcmene, delayed the birth of
Heracles for seven days, that Eurystheus might be born
first, and thus be entitled to greater rights, according to
a vow of Zeus himself. (Hom. Il. 19.95, &c.; Ov. Met. 9.273,
&c.; Diod. l.c.) After the death of Amphitryon, Alcmene
married Rhadamanthys, a son of Zeus, at Ocaleia in Boeotia.
(Apollod. 2.4.11.) After Heracles was raised to the rank of
a god, Alcmene and his sons, in dread of Eurystheus fled to
Trachis, and thence to Athens, and when Hyllus had cut off
the head of Eurystheus, Alcmene satisfied her revenge by
picking the eyes out of the head. (Apollod. 2.8.1.) The
accounts of her death are very discrepant. According to
Pausanias (1.41.1), she died in Megaris, on her way from
Argos to Thebes, and as the sons of Heracles disagreed as to
whether she was to be carried to Argos or to Thebes, she was
buried in the place where she had died. at the command of an
oracle. According to Plutarch, (De Gen. Socr. p. 578,) her
tomb and that of Rhadamanthys were at Haliartus in Boeotia,
and hers was opened by Agesilaus, for the purpose of
carrying her remains to Sparta. According to Pherecydes
(Cap. Anton. Lib. 33), she lived with her sons, after the
death of Eurystheus, at Thebes, and died there at an
advanced age. When the sons of Heracles wished to bury her,
Zeus sent Hermes to take her body away, and to carry it to
the islands of the blessed, and give her in marriage there
to Rhadamanthys. Hermes accordingly took her out of her
coffin, and put into it a stone so heavy that the Heraclids
could not move it from the spot. When, on opening the
coffin, they found the stone, they erected it in a grove
near Thebes, which in later times contained the sanctuary of
Alcmene. (Paus. 9.16.4.) At Athens, too, she was worshipped
as a heroine, and an altar was erected to her in the temple
of Heracles. (Cynosarges, Paus. 1.19.3.) She was represented
on the chest of Cypselus (Paus. 5.18.1), and epic as swell
as tragic poets made frequent use of her story, though no
poem of the kind is now extant. (Hes. Scut. Herc. init.;
Paus. 5.17.4, 18.1.) - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman
biography and mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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