Eurybatus
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In both Greek mythology and ancient Greek history, several figures carry the name Eurybatus the "straddler," not to be confused with Eurybates, the Achaean herald in the Iliad (I, 320; II, 184).
One Eurybatus slew the lamia that menaced Crissan. He posed as a human sacrifice to be offered to the monster; when it approached, unawares, he slew it.
A pair of chthonic tricksters disturbed the sleep of Heracles during the time he was in service to Omphale, queen of Lydia, the time of his eclipse as a hero of male-centered Greek culture. The twins brothers were given various names, Passalus and Acmon, Sillus and Triballus or Olus and Eurybatus. They were sons of Oceanus and Thetis, full of cheats and deceptions, and buzzed round Heracles' head like flies until he captured them and slung them upside-down from his pole. (Graves 1955)
Eurybatus was among the company of the Argonauts [1] (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/argonauts.htm).
Another, more historical Eurybatus of Ephesus betrayed Croesus, king of Lydia, to the Persians. Croesus, a client of the Persians, wary of the growing power of Cyrus in the land of the Medes, and finding Persian forces on the banks of the Halys, the border of his territory, dispatched his agent Eurybatus with gold to recruit Greek mercenaries; instead Eurybatus went over to Cyrus, revealing his master's plans. (Herodotus, The Persian War) [2] (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Croesus.html) His name passed into a proverbial scoundrel among the Greeks This is the scoundrel Eurybatus that Lucian lists among arch-villains in his essay [3] (http://www.epicurus.net/en/alexander.html)
The historical general Eurybatus, leader of the forces of Corcyra, makes an appearance in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War [4] (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/t/t6/chap2.html).
Eurybatus was the former name of a Burmese beetle Rosalia decempuctata illustrated (http://www.gorodinski.ru/ceram_rosalia-decem.html)
References
- Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths 1955.
- Smith, William, A Smaller Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology and Geography (http://www.classicaldictionary.bravepages.com/index.htm)