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Greek Public Monuments of the Persian Wars

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VIII. Spartan Monuments of Salamis and of Plataea

40. Tomb of Eurybiades in Sparta, the commander of the Spartan fleet at Salamis.

Pausanias 3.16.6.

Hitzig and Blümner 1896,1: 798; Frazer 1913,3: 340.

Pausanias 3.16.6 (Pausanias has just mentioned the sanctuary of Leonidas):

“Opposite the temple is a monument by Theopompus son of Nicander, and it is of Eurybiades who fought the naval battle in triremes for the Lacedaqemonians at Salamis and Artemisium.”


In the time of Pausanias and doubtless earlier the tomb of Eurybiades must have been cited as one of the points of special interest in Sparta. Herodotus (8.124) says that Eurybiades was awarded by the Spartans a crown of olive for his valor at Salamis.

41. Spartan trophy for Platae.

Plutarch, Aristides 20.3:

“. . . the Lacedaemonians set up a trophy separately, apart from the Athenians.”

See nos. 32 and 58.

42. Epigram for Plataea.

Palatine Anthology 7.251.

Bergk, Poetae Lyricae Graecae, 4th ed., Simonides 99; Hauvette 1894: 29; Diehl, Simonides 121.

Palatine Anthology 7.251:

“For those who fell together with Leonidas. Of Simonides;

These men, giving unquenchable fame to their fatherland.

are surrounded by the shadowy cloud of death;

dying, they are not dead, since over them valor

with glory brings them to the house of Hades.”

Hauvette believes this to be an authentic Simonidean epigram. Even if this is not true, it my still be a fifth century epigram and may have ben inscribed on stone. The hoide in line one clearly indicates an epitaph. The epitaph for the fallen at Thermopylae is, however, given by Herodotus (7.228; see no. 76); hence, if inscribed, this pigram may refer to the Spartans killed at Plataea (cf. no. 34).