Amphiaraus reluctantly agreed to join the doomed undertaking, but aware of his wife's corruption, asked his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus to avenge his inevitably coming death by killing her, should he not return.
Dying Amphiaraus charged his sons Alcmaeon and Amphilochus with avenging his death, and after Amphiaraus died, fulfilling the prophecy, Alcmaeon killed his mother.
He distinguished himself at the siege of Thebes; but he was held in particular veneration at the court of Amphilochus at Colophon on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, adjacent to Caria.
The Achaeans may have settled the region while under the leadership of Amphilochus, Calchas, and Mopsus.
The relative penitential canons are contained in the canonical letter of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (about 263; P. G., X, 1019), the Councils of Ancyra (314), Neocaesarea (314-20), Nicaea (325), and the three canonical letters of St. Basil to Amphilochus (Ep. 188, 199, 217 in P. G., XXXII, 663, 719, 794).