Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Euphorbus.
The gallery
Menelaus and Hector Fighting over the Body of Euphorbus
Unknown (East Greek / Rhodian plate painter), c. 600 BC
The name-vase Euphorbos plate in the British Museum (GR 1860,0404.1): Menelaus and Hector fight over the fallen Trojan while labels in the archaic alphabet name the dead man ΕΥΦΟΡΒΟΣ. One of the earliest labelled Homeric scenes in Greek art — Panthous' son who wounded Patroclus before Hector finished the kill.
In play
Iliad
Homer
Books 16–17: Euphorbus strikes Patroclus first, then falls to Menelaus — the young Trojan whose death opens the fight for the Myrmidon's armour.
Pythagoras
Later legend made Pythagoras claim to have been Euphorbus in a former life — and to recognize Menelaus' dedicatory shield at Branchidae — transmigration fastened to a Trojan name.
Euphorbus
Trojan son of Panthous — Homeric warrior and, in philosophy's afterlife, the soul Pythagoras said he once was.