A son of Talaus in the Biantid house at Argos, Mecisteus was the father of Euryalus — the godlike warrior who fought beneath Diomedes at Troy and whose grandfather had once come to Thebes for the burial of Oedipus.1
Apollodorus names Mecisteus among the sons begotten by Talaus on Lysimache, in the same roll that introduces Adrastus, Pronax, Aristomachus, and Eriphyle — the Argive kindred of the Theban wars. Of Mecisteus he adds only that he had a son Euryalus, who went to Troy.2
Homer fills out the son rather than the father. Under Diomedes' command sail eighty ships from Argos, Corinth, Cleonae, and the towns about; with the king of the muster goes Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, son of Talaus, a godlike man. At the funeral games for Patroclus the poet remembers the family's older fame: Talaus had once journeyed to Thebes when Oedipus was buried and there defeated all the sons of Cadmus.3
Euryalus fell fighting before the wall — Dolon named him among the best of the Achaeans — and Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, stripped his armour. So the house of Talaus paid its share in the Trojan war through the grandson Mecisteus begot.4
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