Mortal king of Messenia, youngest son of Cresphontes and Merope, also called Cresphontes the Younger. Hidden in Arcadia after the coup of Polyphontes, he returned to avenge his father and recover the throne — the recognition-and-vengeance plot of the lost Euripidean Cresphontes that Aristotle holds up as a model. Eponym of the Messenian Aepytid dynasty. Mortal-tier (the Heraclid divine share is exhausted at this depth).