Editing Ephialtes of Trachis

{{Short description|Betrayer of the Greeks during the Battle of Thermopylae}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Use Oxford spelling|date=July 2024}}

'''Ephialtes''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|ɛ|f|i|ˈ|æ|l|t|iː|z}}; {{langx|el|Ἐφιάλτης}} {{Transliteration|el|Ephialtēs}}){{Efn|Spelled '''Epialtes''' ({{lang|grc|Ἐπιάλτης}}) by [[Herodotus]].}} was a Greek renegade during the [[Greco-Persian Wars]]. Born to Eurydemus ({{langx|el|Εὐρύδημος|label=none}}) of [[Malians (Greek tribe)|Malis]],<ref>{{cite news|first=G. C. |last=Macaulay |title=The History of Herodotus |publisher=The University of Adelaide |url=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/herodotus/h4m/chapter7.html |at=paragraph 213 |access-date=2007-03-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060829135732/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/herodotus/h4m/chapter7.html |archive-date=August 29, 2006 }}</ref> he betrayed his homeland and people to the [[Achaemenid Empire]] by revealing the existence of a path around the Greek coalition's position at [[Thermopylae]].<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', 7.213</ref> His efforts allowed the Persian army to overrun the Greeks' defensive formation and thereby win the [[Battle of Thermopylae]] in September 480 BCE. Ephialtes had hoped that he would be rewarded by the Persian king [[Xerxes I]], but no such reward was bestowed upon him and he was instead forced to go into hiding when a bounty was placed on his head by the allied Greeks in their pursuit of punishing his act of treason. According to [[Herodotus]], this bounty was collected by Athenades ({{langx|el|Ἀθηνάδης|label=none}}) of [[Trachis]] approximately a decade after the [[second Persian invasion of Greece]] was repelled; the [[Sparta|Spartans]] paid Athenades in spite of the fact that his motivation for carrying out the killing apparently had nothing to do with Ephialtes' status as an outlaw.{{CN|date=August 2024}}

==Role in the Greco-Persian Wars==

=== Betraying the Greeks to the Persian army ===
The allied Greek land forces, which [[Herodotus]] states numbered no more than 4,200 men, had chosen Thermopylae to block the advance of the much larger Persian army. Although this gap between the Trachinian Cliffs and the [[Malian Gulf]] was only "wide enough for a single carriage",<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', 7.200</ref> it could be bypassed by a trail that led over the mountains south of Thermopylae and joined the main road behind the Greek position. Herodotus notes that this trail was well known to the locals, who had used it in the past for raiding the neighboring [[Phocians]].<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', 7.215</ref>

The Persians used the trail to outflank the defenders. The [[Sparta]]n king, [[Leonidas I|Leonidas]], sent away most of the Greeks, but he himself remained behind with a rear guard composed of 300 of his men, the [[Thespiae|Thespian]] contingent, comprising 700 Thespians, and a [[Thebes, Greece|Theban]] detachment, composed of 400 men.

Ephialtes expected to be rewarded by the Persians, but this came to nothing when they were defeated at the [[Battle of Salamis]]. He then fled to [[Thessaly]]; the [[Amphictyons]] at [[Thermopylae|Pylae]] had offered a reward for his death. According to Herodotus, he was killed for an apparently unrelated reason by Athenades ({{langx|el|Ἀθηνάδης}}) of [[Trachis]], around 470 BC, but the Spartans rewarded Athenades all the same.<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', 7.213</ref>

==== Accomplices ====
Herodotus notes that two other men were accused of betraying this trail to the Persians: Onetas, a native of [[Carystus]] and son of Phanagoras; and Corydallus, a native of [[Anticyra]]. Nevertheless, he argues Ephialtes was the one who revealed this trail because "the deputies of the Greeks, the [[Amphictyonic league|Pylagorae]], who must have had the best means for ascertaining the truth, did not offer the reward on the heads of Onetas and Corydallus, but for that of Ephialtes."<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', 7.214</ref>

==In popular culture==
In the 1962 film ''[[The 300 Spartans]]'', Ephialtes was portrayed by [[Kieron Moore (Irish actor)|Kieron Moore]] and is depicted as a shady farmhand who worked on a goat farm near [[Thermopylae]]. He betrays the Spartans because he was spurned by the Spartan maiden, Ellas, thinking he could win her over by dangling riches he thought he would later have. 

[[Frank Miller]]'s 1998 [[comic book]] [[miniseries]] ''[[300 (comics)|300]]'', the [[300 (film)|2006 film adaptation of the same name]], and the [[300: Rise of an Empire|2014 sequel]], portray Ephialtes (played in the films by [[Andrew Tiernan]]) as a severely deformed Spartan exile whose parents fled Sparta to protect him from the infanticide he would have surely suffered as a disfigured infant. 

==See also==
{{Portal|Ancient Greece|Biography}}
* [[Battle of Traigh Ghruinneart]], where a dwarf switches sides and kills the leader of the forces he originally was to fight for.
* [[Martín Alhaja]], who had a similar role in the Medieval [[Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa]].<ref>Beerman, Dr. Eric, “The Ancestors of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza be Vaca” in The Louisiana Genealogical Register, June, 1988: Vol. XXXV, No. 2, 101-110</ref>

==Notes==
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==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.213&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0125 Herodotus 7.213] from [[Perseus Project]].

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ephialtes}}
[[Category:5th-century BC Greek people]]
[[Category:Battle of Thermopylae]]
[[Category:Greek people of the Greco-Persian Wars]]
[[Category:Medism]]
[[Category:People from Phthiotis]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:470s BC deaths]]
[[Category:Goatherds]]
[[Category:Greek defectors]]