Catreus was mistakenly killed by his son Althaemenes thereby fulfilling an oracle's prophecy.
Although Catreus kept the prophecy secret, his son Althaemenes found out, and fearing that he would be the one to kill his father, took his sister Apemosyne and left Crete for Rhodes.
Years later, as an old man Catreus sailed the seas searching for his son, so that he could pass on his kingship to him.
Diodorus Siculus, gives a slightly different version of the story, saying that an oracle had been given to Althaemenes which said that he was destined to kill his father.
[5] Another tradition involving Catreus' daughter Aerope, followed by Euripides in his lost play Kressai,[6] and possibly by Sophocles in his play Ajax,[7] was that Catreus found Aerope in bed with a slave and sent her to Nauplius to be drowned.