In both stories there is a theme of a horrifying, and apparently serpentine,[10] beast that savagely ravages a town; the Thespian dragon causes undefined damage, while Sybaris specifically targets livestock and humans.
[22] Another tale of the same type is a legend said about Euthymos, an Olympic victor of the fifth century BC from Locri Epizephyrii, who killed a beast and saved a beautiful woman from it, then married her.
[23] Unlike that legend, and more in line with the Alcyoneus-Eurybarus story, the lovers of Thespiae are of the same sex, a rather rare variant of the fairytale trope where the hero saves the damsel in distress from a dragon.
[24] The use of a hooked or bladed armour to slay the monster is also a common motif in dragon-slaying tales around the globe; in the Persian epic poem Shahnameh (written circa 1000 AD) a chariot covered by a box from which swords protrude is used to kill the dragon, while in the British legend of the Blacksmith of Kirkudbright the eponymous hero kills the White Snake by wearing a suit of armour with retractable spikes and allowing the beast to swallow him.
[9] A similar close parallel is found in a little-known and deeply rooted in folklore legend about the iconoclast Eastern Roman emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775), in which he faced a lion and a dragon with the use of a lorica falcata (a breastplate armored with spikes).
[25] The ending of the story is not preserved, but it is clear that Constantine succeeded and lived, unlike Menestratus, while human sacrifice and the fair maiden in need of rescue are not present.