Lysander

Of such a sort were his dealings with Miletus, according to the record. For when his friends and allies, whom he had promised to aid in overthrowing the democracy and expelling their opponents, changed their minds and became reconciled to their foes, openly he pretended to be pleased and to join in the reconciliation; but in secret he reviled and abused them, and incited them to fresh attacks upon the multitude.

And when he perceived that the uprising was begun, he quickly came up and entered the city, where he angrily rebuked the first conspirators whom he met, and set upon them roughly, as though he were going to punish them, but ordered the rest of the people to be of good cheer and to fear no further evil now that he was with them.

But in this he was playing a shifty part, wishing the leading men of the popular party not to fly, but to remain in the city and be slain. And this was what actually happened; for all who put their trust in him were slaughtered. Furthermore, there is a saying of Lysander’s, recorded by Androcleides, which makes him guilty of the greatest recklessness in the matter of oaths.

It was his policy, according to this authority,

to cheat boys with knuckle-bones, but men with oaths,

Well, then, Cyrus summoned Lysander to Sardis, and gave him this, and promised him that, ardently protesting, to gratify him, that he would actually squander his own fortune, if his father gave him nothing for the Spartans; and if all else failed, he said he would cut up the throne on which he sat when giving audience, a throne covered with gold and silver.

And finally, as he was going up into Media to wait upon his father, he assigned to Lysander the tribute of the cities, and entrusted his own government to him; and embracing him in farewell, and begging him not to fight the Athenians at sea until he was come back, and promising to come back with many ships from Phoenicia and Cilicia, he set out to go up to the King.[*](Cf. Xen. Hell. 2.1.13 f.) Then Lysander, who could neither fight a naval battle on equal terms, nor remain idle with the large fleet at his disposal, put out to sea and reduced some of the islands, and touching at Aegina and Salamis, overran them.

Then he landed in Attica and saluted Agis, who came down in person from Deceleia[*](In the spring of 413 B.C. the Spartans had fortified Deceleia, a few miles N.W. of Athens, and stationed there a permanent garrison under Agis the king. Lysander’s ravaging of Aegina and Salamis was just before his siege of Athens, according to Xenophon (Xen. Hell. 2.2.9)) to meet him, and displayed to the land forces there the strength of his fleet, with the mien of one who sailed where he pleased and was master of the sea. But on learning that the Athenians were pursuing him, he fled by another route through the islands to Asia.