A son of Arcas, after whom Arcadia was named. When the realm was parted among the heirs, Tegea and the country adjoining it fell to Apheidas, so that the poets came to call the city "the lot of Apheidas."1
Pausanias makes Apheidas one of three sons whom Arcas had by a Dryad nymph named Erato — his brothers being Azan and Elatus — after an earlier illegitimate son, Autolaus.2
Apollodorus tells it otherwise, counting Arcas only two sons, Elatus and Aphidas, and naming the mother not Erato but Leanira daughter of Amyclas, or Meganira daughter of Croco, or — on the authority of Eumelus — the nymph Chrysopelia.3
When the sons came of age Arcas divided the land into three. Azania was named for Azan, Mount Cyllene fell to Elatus, and to Apheidas fell Tegea and the country adjoining it; for this reason, Pausanias notes, the poets call Tegea the lot of Apheidas.4
Apollonius keeps the phrase alive in the Argonaut roll, where Amphidamas and Cepheus come from Arcadia, men who dwell in Tegea and the allotment of Apheidas. Apollodorus, dividing the realm between only two heirs, lets Elatus hold the chief power while the brothers shared the land.5
For his offspring the sources part again. Apollodorus gives Apheidas a daughter Stheneboea, wedded to Proetus — though elsewhere the same author makes Stheneboea the wife of Proetus and a daughter of Iobates of Lycia. Pausanias instead names a daughter Leucone, whose tomb lies near Tegea by the Leuconian fountain.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story