Cepheus (son of Aleus)

In the genealogical tradition preserved for Arcadian royal houses, Cepheus is given as a son of Aleus and succeeds as king of Tegea. He is integrated into wider heroic-age narratives—appearing in lists of the Argonauts and among participants in heroic hunts and wars common to pan-Hellenic myth—and is said to have fathered twenty children. Sources record that Cepheus and most of his sons were killed during Heracles's war against Hippocoon, king of Sparta. A separate mythic figure named Cepheus, king of Aethiopia and father of Andromeda, exists in the same body of tradition; later astronomical and popular summaries sometimes conflate those two figures.

Surviving summaries and genealogical notices do not preserve a physical or pictorial description of Cepheus son of Aleus. Ancient and modern brief accounts identify him by role (king of Tegea), kinship (son of Aleus; father of Sterope and twenty children), and actions (Argonaut; slain in Heracles's campaign) rather than by costume, stature, or iconographic attributes. Thus his depiction in the supplied materials is primarily functional and genealogical rather than visual.

The sources portray Cepheus as a heroic-age mortal: he is named among the Argonauts in several lists and is sometimes included among participants in the Calydonian Boar Hunt in summarized accounts. Beyond his reputation as a warrior-king and his membership in heroic cohorts, no supernatural powers or magical abilities are attributed to Cepheus in the provided materials. He functions as a regional royal figure whose fate is shaped by encounters with greater heroes such as Heracles.