Alastor (Epithet)

Alastor (Ἀλάστωρ), an epithet of the Greek god Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the Etymologicum Magnum, which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed. As the personification of a curse, it was also a sidekick of the Erinyes. The name is also used, especially by the tragic writers, to designate any deity or demon who avenges wrongs committed by men. In Euripides' play Electra, Orestes questions an oracle who calls upon him to kill his mother, and wonders if the oracle was not from Apollo, but some malicious alastor. There was an altar to Zeus Alastor just outside the city walls of Thasos.

By the time of the 4th century BC, alastor in Greek had degraded to a generic type of insult, with the approximate meaning of "scoundrel"

Rose, Herbert Jennings (1996), "Alastor", in Hornblower, Simon (ed.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 8.24.8
Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum 13
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1479, 1508 & The Persians 343
Sophocles, The Trachiniae 1092
Euripides, Phoenician Women 1550, &c.
Euripides, Electra 979
Cole, Susan Guettel (1994), "Civic Cult and Civic Identity", in Herman Hansen, Mogens (ed.), Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State: Symposium August, 24-27 1994, Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, p. 310, ISBN 978-87-7304-267-0

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