Histories · Character

Eurybiades

Spartan admiral whose authority over the Greek fleet is so fragile that Themistocles must bribe him to stay and fight.

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Eurybiades holds supreme command of the allied Greek fleet by virtue of Sparta's military primacy, yet his leadership is undermined by the reluctance of city-states to risk their ships. When the Euboeans beg him to hold the line at Artemision, he wavers toward retreat until Themistocles secretly pays him five talents to change his mind — a transaction that reveals how much the Greek cause depends on purchased resolve. His weakness matters because it exposes the centrifugal forces threatening to tear the coalition apart before the Persians can even be engaged.

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See Eurybiades in book viii urania