Plutarch's Lives Volume II Part 15

XI. As besides this Alkibiades had some suspicions of treachery among them, he rode away. On the fifth day however, when the Athenians, after their customary offer of battle, had returned as usual, in a careless and negligent manner, Lysander sent out some ships to reconnoitre, with orders to row back again with all speed as soon as they saw the Athenians disembark, and when they reached the middle of the straits to hoist a brazen shield over their bows as a signal for advance. He himself sailed from ship to ship, addressing the steersmen and captains of each, urging them to be in their place with their full complement both of rowers and fighting-men on deck, and at the signal to row strongly and cheerfully against the enemy.

When the shield was raised, and the signal given by trumpet from the flag-ship, the fleet put to sea, while the land force marched rapidly along the sh.o.r.e towards the promontory. The straits here are only fifteen furlongs wide, a distance which was soon pa.s.sed by the zeal of the Lacedaemonian rowers. Konon was the first of the Athenian generals who perceived the fleet approaching. He at once called out to the men to embark, and in his agony of distress at the disaster, ordered, implored, and forced them into their ships. But all his zeal was useless, scattered as the crews were; for as soon as they disembarked they at once, not expecting any attack, began some to purchase food in the market, some to stroll about, while some went to sleep in their tents, and some began to cook, without the least mistrust of that which befel them, through the ignorance and inexperience of their leaders. As by this time the enemy were close upon them, with loud cries and noise of oars, Konon with eight ships made his way safely through the enemy, and escaped to the court of Evagoras, king of Cyprus. As to the rest of the ships, the Peloponnesians took some of them empty, and sank the others as the sailors endeavoured to get on board of them. Of these men, many perished near their ships, as they ran to them in disorderly crowds, without arms, while others who fled away on land were killed by the enemy, who landed and went in pursuit of them. Besides these, three thousand men, including the generals, were taken prisoners. Lysander also captured the entire fleet, with the exception of the sacred trireme called the Paralus, and the eight ships which escaped with Konon. After plundering the camp, and taking all the captured ships in tow, he sailed back to Lampsakus with triumphal music of flutes and paeans of victory, having won a great victory with little labour, and in a short time brought to a close the longest and most uncertain war ever known in his times. There had been innumerable battles, and frequent changes of fortune, in which more generals had perished than in all the previous wars in Greece, and yet all was brought to a close by the wisdom and conduct of one man: which thing caused some to attribute this victory to the interposition of the G.o.ds.

XII. Some affirmed, that when Lysander's ship sailed out of the harbour of Lampsakus to attack the enemy, they saw the Dioskuri, like two stars, shining over the rudders[147]. Some also say that the fall of the great stone was an omen of this disaster: for the common belief is that a vast stone fell down from Heaven into the Goat's Rivers, which stone is even now to be seen, and is worshipped by the people of the Chersonese. We are told that Anaxagoras foretold that in case of any slip or disturbance of the bodies which are fixed in the heavens, they would all fall down. The stars also, he said, are not in their original position, but being heavy bodies formed of stone, they shine by the resistance and friction of the atmosphere, while they are driven along by the violence of the circular motion by which they were originally prevented from falling, when cold and heavy bodies were separated from the general universe. There is a more credible theory on this subject, that shooting-stars are not a rush of aerial fire which is put out as soon as it is kindled, nor yet a blaze caused by a quant.i.ty of air being suddenly allowed to rush upwards, but that they are heavenly bodies, which from some failure in their rotatory power, fall from their orbit and descend, not often into inhabited portions of the earth, but for the most part into the sea, whereby they escape notice. This theory of Anaxagoras is confirmed by Daimachus in his treatise on Piety, where he states that for seventy-five days before the stone fell a fiery body of great size like a burning cloud, was observed in the heavens. It did not remain at rest, but moved in various directions by short jerks, so that by its violent swaying about many fiery particles were broken off, and flashed like shooting-stars. When, however, it sank to the earth, the inhabitants, after their first feeling of terror and astonishment were pa.s.sed, collected together, and found no traces of fire, but merely a stone lying on the ground, which although a large one, bore no comparison to that fiery ma.s.s. It is evident that this tale of Daimachus can only find credit with indulgent readers: but if it be true, it signally confutes those who argue that the stone was wrenched by the force of a whirlwind from some high cliff, carried up high into the air, and then let fall whenever the violence of the tempest abated. Unless, indeed, that which was seen for so many days was really fire, which, when quenched, produced such a violent rushing and motion in the air as tore the stone from its place. A more exact enquiry into these matters, however, belongs to another subject.

XIII. Now Lysander, after the three thousand Athenians whom he had taken prisoners had been condemned to death by the council, called for Philokles their general, and asked him what punishment he thought that he deserved for having advised his fellow-countrymen to treat Greeks in such a cruel manner.[148] Philokles, not in the least cast down by his misfortunes, bade him not to raise questions which no one could decide, but, since he was victor, to do what he would himself have suffered if vanquished. He then bathed, put on a splendid dress, and led his countrymen to execution, according to the account given by Theophrastus. After this Lysander sailed to the various cities in the neighbourhood, and compelled all the Athenians whom he met to betake themselves to Athens, giving out that he would spare no one, but put to death all whom he found without the city. His object in acting thus was to produce famine in Athens as speedily as possible, that the city might not give him the trouble of a long siege. He now destroyed the democratic and popular const.i.tutions in all the Greek cities which had been subject to Athens, placing a Lacedaemonian in each as harmost or governor, with a council of ten archons under him, composed of men selected from the political clubs which he had established. He proceeded leisurely along, effecting these changes alike in the cities which had been hostile to him and in those which had fought on his side, as though he were preparing for himself a Greece in which he would take the first place. He did not choose his archons by their birth, or their wealth, but favoured his own friends and political adherents, to whom he gave irresponsible power; while by being present at several executions, and driving the opponents of his friends into exile, he gave the Greeks a very unpleasant idea of what they were to expect from the empire of Lacedaemon. The comic poet Theopompus therefore appears to talk at random when he compares the Lacedaemonians to tavern-keepers, because they at first poured out for the Greeks a most sweet draught of liberty and afterwards made it bitter; whereas in truth the taste of their rule was bitter from the beginning, as Lysander would not allow the people to have any voice in the government, and placed all the power in each city in the hands of the most daring and ambitious men of the oligarchical party.

XIV. After spending a short time in arranging these matters and having sent messengers to Laconia to announce that he was coming thither with a fleet of two hundred ships, he joined the Spartan kings, Agis and Pausanias, in Attica, and expected that the city of Athens would soon fall into his hands. Finding, however, that the Athenians made an obstinate defence, he crossed over to Asia again with the fleet. Here he overthrew the existing const.i.tutions and established governments of ten in all the cities alike, putting many citizens to death, and driving many into exile. He drove out all the inhabitants from the island of Samos in a body, and handed over the cities in that island to those who had previously been banished. He also took Sestos from the Athenians, and would not allow the people of Sestos to live there, but gave the city and territory over to those who had acted as steersmen and masters on board of his ships. This indeed was the first of his acts which was cancelled by the Lacedaemonians, who restored Sestos to its inhabitants. Yet his proceedings were viewed with satisfaction by the Greeks, when he restored the aeginetans, who had for a long time been banished from their island, and also refounded Melos and Skione, the Athenians being driven away and forced to give up the cities.

By this time he learned that the people of Athens were nearly starved out, and consequently sailed to Peiraeus and received the submission of the city, which was obliged to accept whatever terms of capitulation he chose to offer. I have indeed heard Lacedaemonians say that Lysander wrote to the Ephors, saying "Athens is taken;" and that they wrote to Lysander in answer, "To have taken it is enough." But this tale is merely invented for effect. The real decree of the Ephors ran as follows:--"This is the decision of the Lacedaemonian government. Throw down the walls of Peiraeus and the Long Walls. Withdraw from all other cities and occupy your own land, and then you may have peace, if you wish for it, allowing likewise your exiles to return. With regard to the number of the ships, whatever be judged necessary by those on the spot, that do."

The Athenians accepted these terms, by the advice of Theramenes the son of Hagnon: and on this occasion it is said that when he was asked by Kleomenes, one of the younger orators, how he dared to act and speak against what Themistokles had done, by giving up to the Lacedaemonians those walls which Themistokles had built in spite of them, he answered, "My boy, I am doing nothing contrary to Themistokles; for these same walls he built up to save his countrymen, and we will throw them down to save them. Indeed, if walls made a city prosperous, then ought Sparta, which has none, to be the most miserable of all."

XV. Now Lysander, after taking all the fleet of the Athenians except twelve ships, and having taken possession of their walls, began to take measures for the subversion of their political const.i.tution, on the sixteenth day of the month Munychion, the same day on which they had defeated the Persians in the sea-fight at Salamis. As they were greatly grieved at this, and were loth to obey him, he sent word to the people that the city had broken the terms of its capitulation, because their walls were standing although the time within which they ought to have been destroyed had elapsed. He therefore would make an entirely new decision about their fate, because they had broken the treaty. Some writers say that he actually consulted the allies about the advisability of selling the whole population for slaves, in which debate the Theban Erianthus proposed to destroy the city and make the site of it a sheep walk. Afterwards, however, when the generals were drinking together a Phokian sang the first song in the Elektra of Euripides, which begins with the words--

"Elektra, Agamemnon's child, I reach thy habitation wild."

At this their hearts were touched, and it appeared to them to be a shameful deed to destroy so famous a city, and one which had produced such great men. After this, as the Athenians agreed to everything that Lysander proposed, he sent for a number of flute-players out of the city, collected all those in his camp, and destroyed the walls and burned the ships to the sound of music, while the allies crowned themselves with flowers and danced around, as though on that day their freedom began. Lysander now at once subverted the const.i.tution, establishing thirty archons in the city, and ten in Peiraeus, placing also a garrison in the Acropolis under the command of Kallibius, who acted as harmost, or governor. This man once was about to strike Autolykus the athlete, in whose house Xenophon has laid the scene of his "Symposium," with his staff, when Autolykus tripped him and threw him down. Lysander did not sympathise with his fall, but even reproached him, saying that he did not know how to govern free men.

However, the Thirty, to please Kallibius, shortly afterwards put Autolykus to death.

XVI. After these transactions Lysander set sail for Thrace, but sent home to Sparta all the money for which he had no immediate occasion, and all the presents and crowns[149] which he had received, in charge of Gylippus, who had held a command in Sicily during the war there.

His wealth was very great, as many naturally had bestowed rich presents on one who had such great power as to be in some sort dictator of Greece. Gylippus is said to have cut open the seam at the bottom of each bag of money, taken a great deal of it out, and then to have sewn it up again, not knowing that there was a written note in each bag stating the amount which it contained. When he reached Sparta he hid the money which he had stolen under the tiles of his roof, and handed the bags over to the Ephors with the seals unbroken. When the bags were opened and the money counted, the amount was found not to agree with the written notes, and the Ephors were much perplexed at this until a servant of Gylippus explained the cause of it in a riddle, telling them that under his tiles roosted many owls. For, it seems, most of the money current at that period bore the Athenian device of the owl, in consequence of the extent of the Athenian empire.

Gylippus, having sullied the glory of his great achievements by this mean and sordid action, left Sparta in disgrace. Yet the wisest Spartans, fearing the power of the money for this very reason, that it was the chief men in the state who would be tempted by it, reproached Lysander for bringing it, and implored the Ephors to convey solemnly all the gold and silver coin away out of the country, as being so much "imported ruin." On this the Ephors invited discussion upon the subject. Theopompus tells us that it was Skiraphidas, but Ephorus says that it was Phlogidas who advised the Spartans not to receive the gold and silver coinage into their country, but to continue to use that which their fathers had used. This was iron money, which had first been dipped in vinegar when red hot, so that it could not be worked, as its being quenched in this manner rendered it brittle and useless, while it was also heavy, difficult to transport from place to place, and a great quant.i.ty of it represented but a small value. It appears probable that all money was originally of this kind, and that men used instead of coin small spits[150] of iron or copper. For this reason we still call small coins obols, and we call six obols a drachma, meaning that this is the number of them which can be grasped by the hand.

XVII. The motion for sending away the money was opposed by Lysander's friends, who were eager to keep it in the state; so that it was at last decided that for public purposes this money might be used, but that if any private person were found in possession of it, he should be put to death: as if Lykurgus had been afraid of money itself, and not of the covetousness produced by it, which they did not repress by forbidding private men to own money so much as they encouraged it by permitting the state to own it, conferring thereby a certain dignity upon it over and above its real value. It was not possible for men who saw that the state valued silver and gold to despise it as useless, or to think that what was thus prized by the whole body of the citizens could be of no concern to individuals. On the contrary, it is plain that national customs much sooner impress themselves on the lives and manners of individuals, than do the faults and vices of individuals affect the national character. When the whole becomes corrupt the parts necessarily become corrupt with it; but the corruption of some of the parts does not necessarily extend to the whole, being checked and overpowered by those parts which remain healthy. Thus the Spartans made the law and the fear of death guard the houses of their citizens so that money could not enter them, but they did not guard their minds against the seductions of money, nay, even encouraged them to admire it, by proclaiming that it was a great and important matter that the commonwealth should be rich. However, I have discussed the conduct of the Lacedaemonians in this respect in another book.

XVIII. From the proceeds of the plunder which he had taken Lysander set up a brazen statue of himself and of each of the admirals[151] at Delphi, and also offered up golden stars to the Dioskuri, which stars disappeared just before the battle of Leuktra. Besides this, in the treasury of Brasidas and the Akanthians there used to be a trireme made of gold and ivory, two cubits long, which was sent to him by Cyrus as a present on the occasion of his victory. Anaxandrides of Delphi also tells us that Lysander deposited there a talent of silver, fifty-two minae, and eleven of the coins called staters, which does not agree with the accounts given by other writers of his poverty.

At this time Lysander was more powerful than any Greek had ever been before, and displayed an amount of pride and arrogance beyond even what his power warranted. He was the first Greek, we are told by Douris in his history, to whom cities erected altars and offered sacrifice as though he were a G.o.d, and he was the first in whose honour paeans were sung, one of which is recorded as having begun as follows:

"The praise of our fair Graecia's king That comes from Sparta, let us sing, Io paean."

Nay, the Samians decreed that their festival, called Heraea in honour of Hera, should be called Lysandreia. He always kept the poet Chrilus in his train, that he might celebrate his actions in verse, and when Antilochus wrote some stanzas in his praise he was so pleased that he filled his hat with silver and gave it to him. Antimachus of Kolophon and one Nikeratus of Heraklea each wrote a poem on his deeds, and competed before him for a prize, at the Lysandreia. He gave the crown of victory to Nikeratus, which so enraged Antimachus that he suppressed his poem. Plato, who was a young man at that time, and admired the poetry of Antimachus, consoled him for his defeat by pointing out to him that the illiterate are as much to be pitied for their ignorance as the blind are for their loss of sight. When, however, the harper Aristonous, who had six times won the victory at the Pythian games, to show his regard to Lysander, told him that if he won the prize again he intended to have his name proclaimed by the herald as Lysander's servant, Lysander said, "Does he mean to proclaim himself my slave?"

XIX. This ambition of Lysander was only a burden to the great, and to those of equal rank with himself. But as none dared to thwart him, his pride and insolence of temper became intolerable. He proceeded to extravagant lengths both when he rewarded and when he punished, bestowing absolute government over important cities upon his friends, while he was satisfied with nothing short of the death of an enemy, and regarded banishment as too mild a sentence. Indeed, when subsequently to this he feared lest the chiefs of the popular party at Miletus might escape, and also wished to tempt those who had concealed themselves to leave their hiding-place, he swore that he would not harm them; and when they, trusting to his word, came forward and gave themselves up, he delivered them over to the aristocratical party to be put to death, to the number of not less than eight hundred men. In all the other cities, too, an indiscriminate ma.s.sacre of the popular party took place, as Lysander not only put to death his own personal enemies, but also those persons against whom any of his friends in each city might happen to have a grudge. Wherefore aeteokles the Lacedaemonian was thought to have spoken well, when he said that "Greece could not have borne two Lysanders." We are told by Theophrastus that Archestratus made the same remark about Alkibiades: although in his case it was insolence, luxury and self-will which gave so much offence, whereas Lysander's harsh, merciless disposition was what made his power so hateful and terrible.

At first the Lacedaemonians paid no attention to complaints brought against him; but when Pharnabazus, who had been wronged by Lysander's depredations on his country, sent an emba.s.sy to Sparta to demand justice, the Ephors were much enraged. They put to death Thorax, one of his friends, whom they found in possession of silver coin, and they sent a skytale to him bidding him appear before them. I will now explain what a skytale was. When the Ephors sent out any one as general or admiral of their forces, they used to prepare two round sticks of wood of exactly the same length and thickness, corresponding with one another at the ends. One of these they kept themselves, and the other they gave to the person sent out. These sticks they call skytales. Now when they desire to transmit some secret of importance to him, they wrap a long narrow strip of paper[152] like a strap round the skytale which is in their possession, leaving no intervals, but completely covering the stick along its whole length with the paper.

When this has been done they write upon the paper while it is upon the stick, and after writing they unwind the paper and send it to the general without the stick. When he receives it, it is entirely illegible, as the letters have no connection, but he winds it round the stick in his possession so that the folds correspond to one another, and then the whole message can be read. The paper is called skytale as well as the stick, as a thing measured is called by the name of the measure.

XX. Lysander, when this skytale reached him at the h.e.l.lespont, was much troubled, and as he especially feared the accusations of Pharnabazus, he hastened to confer with him, with a view to settling their dispute. When they met, Lysander begged him to write a second letter to the Spartan government, stating that he had not received any wrong, and that he had no charge to bring against him. It was, however, a case of "diamond cut diamond," as the proverb has it, for Pharnabazus, while he ostensibly promised to do everything that Lysander wished, and to send publicly a letter dictated by him, had by him another privately-written despatch, and when the seals were about to be affixed, as the two letters looked exactly alike, he subst.i.tuted the privately-written one for that which Lysander had seen. When then Lysander reached Lacedaemon, and proceeded, as it customary, to the senate-house, he handed over to the Ephors this letter of Pharnabazus, with the conviction that thereby he was quashing the most important of all the charges against himself; for Pharnabazus was much loved by the Lacedaemonians, because he had taken their part in the war more zealously than any other Persian satrap. When, however, the Ephors showed him the letter, and he perceived that "Others besides Odysseus[153] can contrive," he retired in great confusion, and a few days afterwards, on meeting with the Ephors, informed them that he must go and pay a sacrifice to Ammon[154]; which he had vowed before winning his victories. Some historians tell us that this was true, and that when he was besieging Aphytae, a city in Thrace, the G.o.d Ammon appeared to him in a dream; in consequence of which he raised the siege, imagining this to be the will of the G.o.d, ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Ammon, and himself made preparations for proceeding at once to Libya to propitiate the G.o.d. Most persons, however, imagined that this was a mere pretence, but that really he feared the Ephors, and was unable to endure the harsh discipline of life at Sparta, and therefore wished to travel abroad, just as a horse longs for liberty when he has been brought back out of wide pastures to his stable and his accustomed work. As to the cause which Ephorus gives for these travels of his, I will mention that presently.

XXI. After having with great difficulty obtained permission from the Ephors, he set sail. Now as soon as he left the country, the two kings, perceiving that by means of his device of governing the cities of Greece by aristocratic clubs devoted to his interest he was virtually master of the whole country, determined to restore the popular party to power and to turn out Lysander's friends. When however this movement was set on foot, and when first of all the Athenians starting from Phyle attacked the Thirty and overpowered them, Lysander returned in haste, and prevailed upon the Lacedaemonians to a.s.sist the cause of oligarchy and put down these popular risings.

They decided that the first government which they would aid should be that of the Thirty, at Athens; and they proposed to send them a hundred talents for the expenses of the war, and Lysander himself as their general. But the two kings, envying his power, and fearing that he would take Athens a second time, determined that one of themselves should proceed thither in his stead. Pausanias accordingly went to Athens, nominally to a.s.sist the Thirty against the people, but really to put an end to the war, for fear that Lysander by means of his friends might a second time become master of Athens. This he easily effected; and by reconciling all cla.s.ses of Athenians to one another and putting an end to the revolution, he made it impossible for Lysander to win fresh laurels. But when shortly afterwards the Athenians again revolted he was much blamed for having allowed the popular party to gather strength and break out of bounds, after it had once been securely bridled by an oligarchy, while Lysander on the contrary gained the credit of having, in every city, arranged matters not with a view to theatrical effect, but to the solid advantage of Sparta.

XXII. He was bold in his speech, and overbearing to those who opposed him. When the Argives had a dispute with the Lacedaemonians about their frontier, and seemed to have justice on their side, Lysander drew his sword, saying, "He that is master of this is in possession of the best argument about frontier lines." When some Megarian in a public meeting used considerable freedom of speech towards him, he answered, "My friend, your words require a city[155] to back them." He asked the Botians, who wished to remain neutral, whether he should pa.s.s through their country with spears held upright or levelled. On the occasion of the revolt of Corinth, when he brought up the Lacedaemonians to a.s.sault their walls, he observed that they seemed unwilling to attack. At this moment a hare was seen to leap across the ditch, upon which he said, "Are you not ashamed to fear such enemies as these, who are so lazy as to allow hares to sleep upon their walls?" When king Agis died, leaving a brother, Agesilaus, and a son Leotychides who was supposed to be his, Lysander, who was attached to Agesilaus, prevailed upon him to lay claim to the crown as being a genuine descendant of Herakles.

For Leotychides laboured under the imputation of being the son of Alkibiades, who carried on an intrigue with Timaea the wife of Agis, when he was living in Sparta as an exile. It is said that Agis, after making a calculation about the time of his wife's pregnancy treated Leotychides with neglect and openly denied that he was his father.

When however he was brought to Heraea during his last illness, and was at the point of death, he was induced by the entreaties of the youth and his friends to declare in the presence of many witnesses that Leotychides was his legitimate son, and died begging them to testify this fact to the Lacedaemonians. They did indeed so testify in favour of Leotychides; and although Agesilaus was a man of great distinction, and had the powerful a.s.sistance of Lysander, yet his claims to the crown were seriously damaged by one Diopeithes, a man deep read in oracular lore, who quoted the following prophecy in reference to the lameness of Agesilaus:

"Proud Sparta, resting on two equal feet, Beware lest lameness on thy kings alight; Lest wars unnumbered toss thee to and fro, And thou thyself be ruined in the fight."

But when many were persuaded by this oracle and looked to Leotychides as the true heir, Lysander said that they did not rightly understand it; for what it meant was, he argued, not that the G.o.d forbade a lame man to reign, but that the kingdom would be lame of one foot if base-born men should share the crown with those who were of the true race of Herakles. By this argument and his own great personal influence he prevailed, and Agesilaus became king of Sparta.

XXIII. Lysander now at once began to urge him to make a campaign in Asia, holding out to him hopes of conquering the Persians and making himself the greatest man in the world. He also wrote to his friends in Asia, bidding them ask the Lacedaemonians to send them Agesilaus to act as their commander in chief in the war with the Persians. They obeyed, and sent an emba.s.sy to demand him: which was as great an honour to Agesilaus as his being made king, and which, like the other, he owed to Lysander alone. However, ambitious natures, though in other respects fit for great commands, often fail in important enterprises through jealousy of their rivals; for they make those men their opponents who would otherwise have been their a.s.sistants in obtaining success. On this occasion Agesilaus took Lysander with him, as the chief of his board of thirty counsellors, and treated him as his greatest friend; but when they reached Asia, the people there would not pay their court to Agesilaus, whom they did not know, while all Lysander's friends flocked round him to renew their former intimacy, and all those who feared him a.s.siduously courted his favour. Thus, as in a play we often see that a messenger or servant engrosses all the interest of the spectators and really acts the leading part, while he who wears the crown and bears the sceptre is hardly heard to speak, so now it was the counsellor who obtained all the honours due to a commander in chief, while the king had merely the t.i.tle without any influence whatever. It was necessary, no doubt, that this excessive power of Lysander should be curtailed, and he himself forced to take the second place: but yet to disgrace and ruin a friend and one from whom he had received great benefits, would have been unworthy of Agesilaus. Consequently at first he did not entrust him with the conduct of matters of importance, and did not give him any separate command. In the next place, he invariably disobliged, and refused the applications, of any persons on whose behalf he understood Lysander to be interested, and thus gradually undermined his power. When however after many failures Lysander perceived that his interest on his friends' behalf was a drawback rather than an advantage to them, he ceased from urging their claims, and moreover begged them not to pay their court to him, but to attach themselves to the king, and to those who were able to promote and reward their followers. Most of them on hearing this no longer troubled him on matters of business, but continued on the most friendly terms with him, and angered Agesilaus more than ever by the manner in which they flocked round him in public places and walks, showing thereby their dislike to the king. Agesilaus now bestowed the government of cities and the conduct of important expeditions upon various obscure soldiers, but appointed Lysander his carver, and then in an insulting manner told the Ionians to go and pay their court to his carver. At this Lysander determined to have an interview with him, and there took place a short and truly Laconian dialogue between them. Lysander said, "You know well, Agesilaus, how to humble your friends." "Yes," answered he, "if they desire to be greater than I am: but those who increase my power have a right to share it." "Perhaps," said Lysander, "you have spoken better than I have acted; however, if it be only on account of the mult.i.tude whose eyes are upon us, I beg you to appoint me to some post in which I may be of more use to you, and cause you less annoyance than at present."

XXIV. Upon this he was sent on a special mission to the h.e.l.lespont, where although he was at enmity with Agesilaus, he did not neglect his duty, but, finding that the Persian Spithridates, a man of n.o.ble birth and commanding a considerable force, was on bad terms with Pharnabazus, he induced him to revolt, and brought him back with him to Agesilaus. After this Lysander was given no further share in the conduct of the war, and after some time sailed back to Sparta in disgrace, full of rage against Agesilaus, and hating the whole Spartan const.i.tution more than ever. He now determined without any further delay to put in practice the revolutionary plans which he had so long meditated. These were as follows:--When the descendants of Herakles, after a.s.sociating with the Dorians, returned to Peloponnesus, their race grew and flourished at Sparta. Yet it was not every family of the descendants of Herakles, but only the children of Eurypon and Agis who had a right to the throne, while the others gained no advantage from their n.o.ble birth, as all honours in the state were given according to merit. Now Lysander, being a descendant of Herakles, after he had gained great glory by his achievements and obtained many friends and immense influence, could not endure that the state should reap such great advantages from his success, and yet continue to be ruled by men of no better family than himself. He meditated, therefore, the abolition of the exclusive right to the throne possessed by these two families, and throwing it open to all the descendants of Herakles, or even, according to some historians, to all Spartans alike, in order that the crown might not belong to the descendants of Herakles, but to those who were judged to be like Herakles in glory, which had raised Herakles himself to a place among the G.o.ds themselves. If the throne were disposed of in this manner he imagined that no Spartan would be chosen king before himself.

XXV. First then he proposed to endeavour to win over his countrymen to his views by his own powers of persuasion, and with this object studied an oration written for him by Kleon of Halikarna.s.sus. Soon, however, he perceived that so new and important a scheme of reform would require more violent means to carry it into effect, and, just as in plays supernatural machinery is resorted to where ordinary human means would fail to produce the wished-for termination, even so did Lysander invent oracular responses and prophecies and bring them to bear on the minds of his countrymen, feeling that he would gain but little by p.r.o.nouncing Kleon's oration, unless the Spartans had previously, by superst.i.tion and religious terrors, been brought into a state of feeling suitable for its reception. Ephorus relates in his history that Lysander endeavoured by means of one Pherekles to bribe the priestess at Delphi, and afterwards those of Dodona; and that, as this attempt failed, he himself went to the oracle of Ammon and had an interview with the priests there, to whom he offered a large sum of money. They also indignantly refused to aid his schemes, and sent an emba.s.sy to Sparta to charge him with having attempted to corrupt them.

He was tried and acquitted, upon which the Libyans, as they were leaving the country, said:--"We at any rate, O Spartans, will give more righteous judgments when you come to dwell amongst us"--for there is an ancient oracle which says that the Lacedaemonians shall some day settle in Libya. Now as to the whole framework of Lysander's plot, which was of no ordinary kind, and did not take its rise from accidental circ.u.mstances, but consisted, like a mathematical demonstration, of many complicated intrigues all tending to one fixed point, I will give a short abstract of it extracted from the works of Ephorus, who was both an historian and a philosopher.

XXVI. There was a woman in Pontus who gave out that she was pregnant by Apollo. As might be expected, many disbelieved in her pretensions, but many more believed in them, so that when a male child was born of her, it was cared for and educated at the charge of many eminent persons. The child, for some reason or other, was given the name of Silenus. Lysander, starting with these materials, constructed the rest of the story out of his own imagination. He was a.s.sisted in his scheme by many persons of the highest respectability, who unsuspiciously propagated the fable about the birth of the child: and who also procured another mysterious story from Delphi, which they carefully spread abroad at Sparta, to the effect that some oracles of vast antiquity are guarded by the priests at Delphi, in writings which it is not lawful to read; nor may any one examine them or look upon them, until in the fulness of time one born of Apollo shall come, and after clearly proving his birth to the guardians of these writings, shall take the tablets which contain them. This having been previously arranged, Silenus's part was to go and demand the oracles as Apollo's child, while those of the priests who were in the plot were to make inquiries and examine carefully into his birth, and at length were to appear convinced of the truth of the story, and show the writings to him, as being really the child of Apollo. He was to read aloud in the presence of many persons all the oracles contained in the tablets, especially one which said that it would be better for the Spartans to choose their kings from the best of the citizens. Silenus was nearly grown up, and the time to make the attempt had almost arrived, when the whole plot was ruined by the cowardice of one of the princ.i.p.al conspirators, whose heart failed him when the moment for action arrived. None of these particulars, however, were discovered till after Lysander's death.

XXVII. Before Agesilaus returned from Asia Lysander perished in a Botian war in which he had become involved, or rather had involved Greece; for various accounts are given of it, some laying the blame upon him, some upon the Thebans, and some upon both. It was urged against the Thebans that they overturned the altar at Aulis and scattered the sacrifice,[156] and also that Androkleides and Amphitheus, having been bribed by Persia to induce all the Greek states to attack the Lacedaemonians, had invaded the Phokian territory and laid it waste. On the other hand Lysander is said to have been angry that the Thebans alone should claim their right to a tenth part of the plunder obtained in the war, though the other allies made no such demand, and that they should have expressed indignation at Lysander's sending such large sums of money to Sparta. He was especially wroth with them for having afforded the Athenians the means of freeing themselves from the domination of the Thirty, which he had himself established, and which the Lacedaemonians had endeavoured to support by decreeing that all exiled Athenians of the popular party might be brought back to Athens from whatever place they might be found in, and that those who protected them against being forcibly brought back should be treated as outlaws. In answer to this the Thebans pa.s.sed a decree worthy of themselves, and deserving of comparison with the great acts of Herakles and Dionysus, the benefactors of mankind. Its provisions were, that every city and every house in Botia should be open to those Athenians who required shelter, that whoever did not a.s.sist an Athenian exile against any one who tried to force him away should be fined a talent, and that if any marched under arms through Botia to attack the despots at Athens, no Theban should either see or hear them. Not only did they make this kindly and truly h.e.l.lenic decree, but they also acted up to the spirit of it; for when Thrasybulus and his party seized Phyle, they started from Thebes, supplied with arms and necessaries by the Thebans, who also a.s.sisted them to keep their enterprise secret and to begin it successfully. These were the charges brought against the Thebans by Lysander.

XXVIII. His naturally harsh temper was now soured by age, and he urged on the Ephors into declaring war against the Thebans, and appointing him their general to carry it on. Subsequently, however, they sent the king, Pausanias, with an army, to co-operate with him. Pausanias marched in a circuitous course over Mount Kithaeron, meaning to invade Botia on that side, while Lysander with a large force came to meet him through Phokis. He took the city of Orchomenus, which voluntarily came over to his side, and he took Lebadeia by storm and plundered it.

He now sent a letter to Pausanias bidding him march through the territory of Plataea and join him at Haliartus, promising that at daybreak he would be before the walls of Haliartus. The messenger who carried this letter fell into the hands of the enemy, and the letter was taken to Thebes. Hereupon the Thebans entrusted their city to the care of the Athenians, who had come to their aid, and themselves started early in the evening, reached Haliartus a little before Lysander, and threw a body of troops into the town. Lysander, on discovering this, at first determined to halt his army on a hill in the neighbourhood and await the arrival of Pausanias: but as the day went on he could remain quiet no longer, but got his men under arms, harangued the allied troops, and led them in a close column down the road directly towards the city. Upon this those of the Thebans who had remained outside the walls, leaving the city on their left hand, marched to attack the extreme rear of the Lacedaemonians, near the fountain which is called Kissousa,[157] in which there is a legend that Dionysus was washed by his nurses after his birth; for the water is wine-coloured and clear, and very sweet-tasted. Round the fountain is a grove of the Cretan Storax-trees,[158] which the people of Haliartus point to as a proof of Rhadamanthus having lived there. They also show his tomb, which they call Alea. The sepulchre of Alkmena too is close by: for the story goes that she married Rhadamanthus here after the death of Amphitryon. Meanwhile the Thebans in the city, together with the citizens of Haliartus themselves, remained quiet until Lysander and the first ranks of the enemy came close to the walls, and then suddenly opening the gates they charged and slew him together with his soothsayer and some few more: for most of them fled quickly back to the main body. However as the Thebans did not desist but pressed on, the whole ma.s.s took to flight, and escaped to the neighbouring hills with a loss of about one thousand men. Three hundred of the Thebans also fell in an attack which they made on the enemy in rough and difficult ground. These men had been accused of favouring the Lacedaemonians, and it was to wipe out this unjust imputation before the eyes of their fellow citizens that they showed themselves so reckless of their lives.

XXIX. When Pausanias heard of this disaster, he was marching from Plataea towards Thespiae. He at once put his troops in array and proceeded to Haliartus. Here likewise arrived Thrasybulus from Thebes, with an Athenian force. On his arrival, Pausanias proposed to apply for permission to carry away the dead. This proposal greatly shocked the older Spartans, who could not refrain from going to the king and imploring him not to receive back Lysander's corpse by a truce[159]

which was in itself a confession of defeat, but to let them fight for his body and either bury it as victors, or else to share their general's fate as became them. However, in spite of these representations, Pausanias, perceiving that it would be no easy task to overcome the Thebans, flushed as they were with the victory of the day before, and that, as Lysander's body lay close under the walls of the town, it would be almost impossible, even if they were victorious, to recover it otherwise than by treaty, sent a herald, obtained the necessary truce, and led away his forces. As soon as the Spartans crossed the Botian frontier they buried the body of Lysander in the territory of the friendly and allied city of Panope, in Phokis, where at the present day his monument stands by the side of the road from Chaeronea to Delphi.[160] It is said that while the army was encamped there one of the Phokians, while describing the battle to another who had not been present, said that the enemy fell upon them just after Lysander had crossed the Hoplites.[161] A Spartan who was present was surprised at this word, and enquired of Lysander's friend, what he meant by the Hoplites, for he did not understand it. "It was where,"

answered he, "the enemy overthrew our front ranks; for they call the stream which runs past the city the Hoplites." On hearing these words the Spartan burst into tears, and exclaimed, "How impossible is it for a man to escape his fate:"--for it seems Lysander had received an oracular warning in these words:

"I warn thee, shun Hoplites roaring track.

And th' earth-born snake that stings behind thy back."

Some say that the Hoplites does not run by Haliartus, but that it is the name of a torrent which joins the river Philarus near Koronea, which used to be called the Hoplias, and is now called Isomantus. The man who killed Lysander was a citizen of Haliartus named Neochorus, who bore a snake as the device upon his shield, which it is supposed was alluded to by the oracle.

We are also told that during the Peloponnesian war the Thebans received an oracle from Apollo Ismenius, referring immediately to the battle of Delium, and also to this battle at Haliartus, which took place thirty years afterwards. It ran as follows:

"Beware the boundary, when you hunt The wolf with spears; And shun the Orchalian hill, the fox's haunt, For endless years."

The boundary alludes to the country near Delium, which is on the borders of Attica and Botia, and the Orchalian hill, which is now called Fox-hill, lies in the territory of Haliartus, on the side nearest Mount Helikon.

x.x.x. The death of Lysander, as related above, grieved the Spartans so much that they impeached their king on a capital charge, and he, fearing the result of the trial, fled to Tegea, where he spent the remainder of his life in the sanctuary of Athena as a suppliant of the G.o.ddess. Moreover the poverty of Lysandor, which was discovered after his death, made his virtue more splendid, for although he had handled great sums of money, and possessed immense power; though his favour had been courted by wealthy cities, and even by the great king of Persia himself, yet Theopompus tells us that he did not in the least degree improve his family estate: an account which we may the more readily believe, as it is told us by a historian who is more p.r.o.ne to censure than to admiration. In later times we learn from the historian Ephorus that some dispute arose between the allied cities which rendered it necessary to examine Lysander's papers, and that Agesilaus went to his house for this purpose. Here he found the scroll upon which was written the speech about altering the const.i.tution; advising the Spartans to abolish the hereditary right to the throne enjoyed by the old royal families of Eurypon and Agis, and to throw it open to the best of the citizens without restriction. Agesilaus was eager to publish this speech abroad, and show his fellow-countrymen what sort of a man Lysander had really been; but Lakratides, a wise man, who was at that time chief of the board of Ephors, restrained him, pointing out that it would be wrong to disturb Lysander in his grave, and that it would be better that so clever and insidious a composition should be buried with him. Among other honours which were paid to Lysander after death, the Spartans fined the suitors of his daughters, because when after his death his poverty was discovered, they refused to marry them, thus showing that they had paid their court to him when they believed him to be rich, and neglected him when his poverty proved him to have been just and honourable. It appears that in Sparta there were actions at law against men who did not marry, or who married too late in life or unbecomingly: under which last head came those who tried to marry into rich families, instead of marrying persons of good birth and their own friends. This is what we have found to tell about the life of Lysander.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 146: A Persian gold coin, first coined by Darius the son of Hystaspes, worth 1 1s. 10d. English money.]

[Footnote 147: All ancient ships were managed with two rudders.]

[Footnote 148: Alluding to the cruelties practised by Philokles on the Andrians and Corinthians, and the decree for the mutilation of the captives, of which Philokles was the author.]

[Footnote 149: Golden crowns, at this period of Greek history, was the name applied to large sums of money voted by cities to men whose favour they hoped to gain.]

[Footnote 150: A spit is called obelus in Greek.]

[Footnote 151: Probably of each of the Spartan admirals who had commanded during the war. It should be remembered that Lysander was nominally admiral when he won the battle of aegospotami.]