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
Mythological king mythological beasts. His archetypical role is usually to protect and serve the people. One mythological archetype is the "good king" (McConnel 1979), also sometimes called the "monarchical hero". The "good king" is often the epic hero who made his world safe for civilization. Two examples that scholars have identified as filling the roles and earning the reputation of "good kings" were King Arthur and Beowulf, above and beyond their legendary and historic lives. Beowulf for example is a mythological king in training in the epic tradition, because he fights "a strenuous battle against the disorganization of the universe." (McConnel 1979:59)