A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(*)QRUA/DHS2), a Spartan, was one of the three hundred selected to fight with an equal number of Argives for the possession of Thyrea. Othryades was the only Spartan who survived the battle, and he remained on the field, and spoiled the dead bodies of the enemy, while Alcenor and Chromius, the two survivors of the Argive party, hastened home with the news of victory, supposing that all their opponents had been slain. On the second day after this, Othryades having remained at his post the whole time, the main armies of the two states came to ascertain the result, and, as the victory was claimed by both sides, a general battle ensued, in which the Argives were defeated. Othryades slew himself on the field, being ashamed to return to Sparta as the one survivor of her three hundred champions. The above is the account of Herodotus. Pausanias tells us, that in the theatre at Argos there was a sculptured

group representing Perilaus, an Argive, son of Alcenor, as slaying Othryades; and the story of his suicide, as given by Herodotus, is also contradicted by the account in Suidas, where we find (adopting the amended reading) that, being wounded, he lay among the dead, unnoticed by Alcenor and Chromits, and that, on their departure from the field, he raised a trophy, traced on it an inscription with his blood, and died (tHerod. 1.82; Thuc. 5.41; Suid. s. v. Ὀθρυάδης ; Luc. Contempl. ad fin.; Hemst. ad loc. ; Pseudo-Simon. aq. Anth.i. p. 63, ed. Jacobs; Dioscor. ibid. i. p. 247; Nicand. ibid. ii. p. 2; Chaerem. ibid. ii. p. 56; Thes. apud Stub. vii. p. 92; Ov. Faast. 2.663.)

[E.E]