The local tradition concerning him is preserved in Pausanias' Description of Greece, and runs as follows.
Alternately, he was called son of the river god Cephissus (hence referred to by the patronymic Cephisiades in some poetical texts according to Pausanias).
Eteocles was also said to have been the first to offer sacrifices to the Charites, and to have recognized three as the true number of the goddesses.
[4] Strabo also credits Eteocles with founding the temple of the Charites, and mentions that Eteocles "was the first to display both wealth and power; for he honored these goddesses either because he was successful in receiving graces, or in giving them, or both.
"[5] In another account, surviving in the commentaries of Nicolaus Sophista, a Greek philosopher and rhetor of the fifth century AD, the three daughters of Eteocles fell into a deep well while singing and dancing in honour of the Graces and drowned.