Alecto appeared in Virgil's Aeneid, in Dante's Inferno, in Miklós Zrínyi's Siege of Sziget and appeared in Dostoyevsky books, in his subliminar psyche, as one of the three Erinyes, and also in Handel's Rinaldo HWV 7 in the Aria "Sibillar gli angui d'Aletto".
He had some of the avenging and fearful character of an Erynis, for Pausanias saw near the River Cephissus "an ancient altar of Zeus Meilichios; on it Theseus received purification from the descendants of Phytalos after he had slain among other robbers Sinis, who was related to himself".