ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explore the variant traditions of the story and offer an alternative understanding of the story in Herodotus. They suggest that the non-Herodotean version of the tale derived from the literary reworkings of it in the Hellenistic period, which were predicated on the interests of genre and literary milieu rather than on any sense of historicity. Herodotus’ source here, although unnamed, suggests a Laconian provenance, especially because Spartans would be in the best position to tell of Othryadas’ fate. Herodotus’ (or the Spartans’) understanding of Othryadas seems to have been greatly influenced by the events of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 bce, and in fact it appears that Herodotus meant for his reader to connect events. The building up of Othryadas at Thyrea to become a central point of reference to Spartan valor in later epigram shows his literary quality as exemplum instilled by Hellenistic epigrammatists.
