A son of Elatus in the line of Arcas, Stymphalus gave his name to the spring and to the Arcadian city Stymphalus that lay beside it.1
Both Pausanias and Apollodorus make Stymphalus a son of Elatus, who held the chief power among the descendants of Arcas.2
Pausanias counts Stymphalus among the five sons of Elatus, listing them as Aepytus, Pereus, Cyllen, Ischys, and Stymphalus, but names no mother.3
Apollodorus, by contrast, names the mother: Elatus begat Stymphalus and Pereus by Laodice, the daughter of Cinyras.4
Of the sons of Elatus, Pausanias relates, Cyllen gave his name to Mount Cyllene, and Stymphalus gave his to the spring and to the city Stymphalus that stood near the spring, binding his name to the Arcadian water.5
From Stymphalus the line ran on: Pausanias names Agamedes and Gortys as his sons, reckoning them three generations removed from Arcas, and adds that Gortys son of Stymphalus founded the city of Gortys.6
Only Apollodorus preserves his end. When Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, for in a war with Stymphalus, king of the Arcadians, Pelops, being unable to conquer Arcadia, slew the king under a pretence of friendship and scattered his mangled limbs, the oracles declared that the land would be freed of its calamity only if Aeacus, the most pious of men, offered prayers on its behalf.7
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