Alcathous of Elis Aetolia, and when his brother Callipolis hastened to carry the sad tidings to his father, he found him engaged in offering a sacrifice to Apollo, and thinking it unfit to offer sacrifices at such a moment, he snatched away the wood from the altar. Alcathous imagining this to be an act of deliberate sacrilege, killed his son on the spot with a piece of wood. The acropolis of Megara was called by a name derived from that of Alcathous. Alcathous was grandfather of the hero Ajax, via his daughter Periboea, who married Telamon, and of Iolaus, nephew and charioteer of
The King Must Die Prescott calling it "one of the truly fine historical novels of modern times." Renault wrote a sequel, "The Bull from the Sea", in 1962. "The King Must Die" is an adaption of the early life and adventures of the mythological Greek hero Theseus. Beginning with his childhood in the Greek city-state of Troizen, the plot follows him through his travels in Eleusis, where he becomes king; in Athens, where he becomes known as the son and heir of the king; and in Crete, where he learns the Cretan sport of bull-leaping. The novel ends with Theseus's return to Athens. The