and disgrace. Though the justness of the general's cause was perfectly known in the senate, at least by the major part of it, as soon as the people's rage was mentioned, and the terrible menaces they murmured, those grave senators, most of whom had commanded armies, and who all of them had frequently exposed themselves to the greatest dangers of war, instantly changed sides, and came over to the most notorious calumny, and crying injustice, that ever had being. An evident proof, that there is a courage, though very rare, which infinitely transcends the valour that induces so many thousands of men every day to confront the most terrible dangers in battle. Among all the judges, only one, truly worthy of his reputation (the great Socrates,) in this general treason and perfidy, stood firm and immoveable; and though he knew his suffrage and unaided voice would be of little or no consequence to the accused, he thought them a just homage to oppressed innocence, and that it was unworthy an honest man to govern himself by the fury of a blind and frantic people. We see in this instance how far the cause of justice may be abandoned. We may conclude it was not better defended before the people. Of more than 3000 citizens who composed the assembly, two only took upon them the defence of their generals, Euriptodemus and Axiochus. Plato has preserved their names and given that of the latter to the dialogue, from whence part of these reflections are taken. The same year the battle of the Aginusæ was fought, Dionysius possessed himself of the tyranny in Sicily. I shall defer speaking of him til book xi. in which I shall treat the history of Syracuse at large. LYSANDER SECTION VI. COMMANDS THE LACEDEMONIAN FLEET.-HIS CELEBRATED AFTER the defeat of the Arginusæ, the affairs of the Peloponnesians declining, the allies, supported by the credit of Cyrus, sent an embassy to Sparta, to demand that the command of the fleet should again be given to Lysander, with the promise of serving with more affection and courage if their request were granted. As it was contrary to the laws of Sparta that the same person should be twice admiral, the Lacedæmonians, to satisfy the allies, gave the title of admiral to one Aracus, and sent Lysander with him, whom in appearance they commissioned only as vice-admiral, though in effect with all the authority of the supreme command. All those who had the greatest share in the government of the cities, and were of most authority in them, saw him arrive with extreme joy; promising themselves, from his influence, the final subversion of the democratic power. His character of complacency for his friends, and indulgence to all their faults, suited much better with their ambitious and injurious views, than the austere equity of Callicratidas. For Lysander was a man of the most corrupt heart, and gloried in having no principles in point of virtue or the most sacred duties. He made no scruple to employ artifice and deceit upon all occasions, and esteemed justice only as far as it served * Ου γαρ εφαίνετο μοι σεμνον δήμω μαινομένω συνεξαρχειν. A. M. 3598. Aut J. C. 406. his measures. When it did not promote them, he never failed to prefer the useful, which with him was alone laudable and excellent; from a persuasion that truth had in its own nature no advantage over falsehood, and that the value of both one and the other was to be determined by the convenience resulting from them. And for those who represented to him, that it was unworthy the descendants of Hercules to make use of fraud and treachery, he laughed at them: "For," said he, "where the lion's skin " is not long enough, it is necessary to tack the fox's tail to it." An expression ascribed to him, sufficiently denotes how small an account he made of perjury. He used to say, " *Children are amused with baubles, "and men with oaths;" showing by so professed a want of religion, that the gods were more inconsiderable with him than his enemies; for he who deceives with a false oath, plainly declares in so doing that he fears his enemies, but that he despises God. Here ends the 26th year of the Peloponnesian war. In this year, it was, that young Cyrus, dazzled with the unusual splendour of supreme authority, and jealous of the least omission in point of ceremonial homage, discovered by a remarkable action the secret of his heart. Brought up from his infancy in the reigning house, nurtured under the shade of the throne, amidst the submissions and prostrations of the courtiers, entertained long by the discourses of an ambitious mother, who idolized him, in the desire and hope of empire, he began already to affect the rights of sovreignty, and to exact the honours paid to it with surprising haughtiness and rigour. Two Persians of the royal family, his cousins-german, by their mother, his father Darius' sister, had omitted to cover their hands with their sleeves in his presence, according to a ceremonial observed only to the kings of Persia. Cyrus, resenting that neglect as a capital crime, condemned them both to die, and caused them to be executed at Sardis without mercy. Darius, at whose feet their relations threw themselves to demand justice, was very much affected with the tragical end of his two nephews, and looked upon this action of his son's as an attempt upon himself, to whom alone that honour was due. He resolved therefore to take his government from him, and ordered him to court upon the pretext of being sick, and having a desire to see him. Cyrus, before his departure, sent for Lysander to Sardis, and put into his hands great sums of money for the payment of his fleet, promising him still more for the future; and with the ostentation of a young man, to let him see how much he desired to oblige him, he assured him, that though the king his father should cease to afford him any supplies, he would furnish him the more willingly out of his own coffers, and that, rather than he should want the necessary provisions, he would even cause the throne of massy gold and silver, upon which he sat in judgment, to be melted down. At length when he was upon the point of setting out, he empowered him to receive the tributes and revenues of the cities; confided the government of his provinces to him, and conjured him with embraces not to give battle in his absence, unless superior in force; because the king neither wanted the will nor the power to give him that superiority to the enemy; promising at the same time, with the strongest assurances of affection, to bring him.a great number of ships from Phoenicia and Cilicia. *The Greek text admits of another sense, which is perhaps no less good: chil dren may use art, and cheat one another in their games, and men in their oaths Εκέλευε τες μεν παίδας αςραγάλοις, τες δάνδρας ορκοις εξαπαταν. † Xenoph. Hellen. I. ii. p. 454. * After that prince's departure, Lysander sailed towards the Hellespont, and laid siege to Lampsacus. Torax having marched thither with his land forces at the same time, assaulted the city on his side. The place was carried by storm, and abandoned by Lysander to the mercy of the soldiers. The Athenians who followed him close, came to an anchor in the port of Eleontum, in the Chersonesus, with 180 galleys. But upon the news of the taking of Lampsacus, they immediately steered for Sestos, and after having taken in provisions, they stood away from thence, sailing along the coast to a place called † Ægospotamus, where they halted over against the enemy, who were then at anchor before Lampsacus. The Hellespont is not above 2000 paces broad in that place. The two armies, seeing themselves so near each other, expected only to rest that day, and were in hopes of coming to a battle on the next. But Lysander had another design in view. He commanded the seamen and pilots to go on board their galleys, as if they were in reality to fight the next morning at break of day, to hold themselves in readiness, and to wait his orders with profound silence. He ordered the land army in like manner to draw up in battle upon the coast, and to wait the day without any noise. On the morrow as soon as the sun was risen, the Athenians began to row towards them with their whole fleet in one line, and to bid them defiance. Lysander, though his ships were ranged in order of battle, with their heads towards the enemy, lay still without making any movement. In the evening when the Athenians withdrew he did not suffer his soldiers to go ashore, till two or three galleys, which he had sent out to observe them, were returned with advice that they had seen the enemy land. The next day passed in the same manner, as did the third and fourth. Such a conduct, which argued reserve and apprehension, extremely augmented the security and boldness of the Athenians, and inspired them with an extreme contempt for an army, which fear, in their sense, prevented from showing themselves, and attempting any thing. Whilst this passed, Alcibiades, who was near the fleet, took horse, and came to the Athenian generals; to whom he represented, that they kept upon a very disadvantageous coast, where there were neither ports nor cities in the neighbourhood; that they were obliged to bring their provisions from Sestos with great danger and difficulty; and that they were very much in the wrong to suffer the soldiers and mariners of the fleet, as soon as they were ashore, to straggle and disperse themselves at their own pleasure, whilst the enemy's fleet faced them in view, accustomed to execute the orders of their general with instant obedience, and upon the slightest signal. He offered also attack the enemy by land with a strong body of Thracian troops, and to force them to a battle. The generals, especially Tydeus and Menander, jealous of their command, did not content themselves with refusing his offers, from the opinion that if the event proved unfortunate, the whole blame would fall on them, and if favourable, that Alcibiades would engross the honour of it, but rejected also with insult his wise and salutary counsel, as if a man in disgrace lost his sense and abilities with the favour of the commonwealth. Alcibiades withdrew. The fifth day the Athenians presented themselves again, and offered him battle; retiring in the evening according to custom, with more insulting airs than the day before. Lysander, as usual, detached some galleys * Xenoph. Hellen. 1. ii. p. 455-458. † Phut. in Lys. p. 437. et 440. Idem. in Alcib. p. 212. Diod. l. xiii. p. 225, £26. fThe river of the Goat. to observe them, with orders to return with the utmost diligence, when they saw the Athenians landed, and to put a brazen buckler at each ship's head as soon as they reached the middle of the channel. Himself in the mean time ran through the whole line in his galley, exhorting the pilots and officers to hold the seamen and soldiers in readiness to row and fight on the first signal. As soon as the bucklers were put in the ship's heads, and the admiral's galley had given the signal by the sound of trumpet, the whole fleet set forward in good order. The land army at the same time made all possible haste to the top of the promontory to see the battle. The strait that separates the two continents in this place, is about 15 stadia,* or three quarters of a league in breadth, which space was presently cleared through the activity and diligence of the rowers. Conon, the Athenian general was the first who perceived from shore the enemy's fleet advance in good order to attack him; upon which he immediately cried out for the troops to embark. In the height of sorrow and perplexity, some he called to by by their names, some he conjured, and others he forced to go on board their galleys but all his endeavours and emotion were ineffectual, the soldiers being dispersed on all sides. For they were no sooner come on shore, than some ran to the sutlers, some to walk in the country, some to sleep in their tents, and others had begun to dress their suppers. This proceeded from the want of vigilance and experience in their generals, who not suspecting the least danger, indulged themselves in taking their repose, and gave their soldiers the same liberty. The enemy had already fallen on with loud cries and a great noise of their oars, when Conon, disengaging himself with nine galleys, of which number was the sacred ship called the Paralian, stood away for Cyprus, where he took refuge with Evagoras. The Peloponnesians, falling upon the rest of the fleet, took immediately the galleys which were empty, and disabled and destroyed such as began to fill with men. The soldiers, who ran without order or arms to their relief, were either killed in the endeavour to get on board, or flying on shore, were cut to pieces by the enemy who landed in pursuit of them. Lysander took 3000 prisoners, with all the generals, and the whole fleet. After having plundered the camp, and fastened the enemy's galleys to the sterns of his own, he returned to Lampsacus, amidst the sound of flutes and songs of triumph. It was his glory to have achieved one of the greatest military exploits recorded in history with little or no loss, and to have terminated a war in the small space of an hour, which had already lasted 27 years, and which perhaps without him, had been of much longer continuance. Lysander immediately sent dispatches with this agreeable news to Sparta. The 3000 prisoners taken in this battle, having been condemned to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who had caused all the prisoners taken in two galleys, the one of Andros, the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to disable them from handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to serve at the oar. Lysander therefore caused him to be brought forth, and asked him what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he was in, made answer, *1875 paces. "Accuse not people of crimes who have no judges; but as you are vic66 tor, use your right, and do by us as we had done by you if we had conquered." At the same instant he went into a bath, put on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost to the execution. All the prisoners were put to the sword except Adamantus, who had opposed the decree. After this expedition, Lysander went with his fleet to all the maritime cities, and gave orders for all Athenians in them to withdraw as soon as possible to Athens, without permitting them to take any other route; declaring, that after a certain time fixed, all such should be punished with death as should be found out of Athens. This he did as an able politician, to reduce the city by famine the more easily, and to render it incapable of sustaining a long siege. He afterwards applied himself in subverting the democratic and all other forms of government throughout the cities, leaving in each of them a Lacedæmonian governour, called harmostes, and ten archons or magistrates, whom he chose out of the societies he had established in them. He thereby in some measure secured to himself universal authority and a kind of sovreignty over all Greece, putting none into power but such as were entirely devoted to his service. SECTION VII. LYSANDER BESIEGES ATHENS-FORM OF GOVERNMENT CHANGED-DEATH OF DARIUS NOTHUS. WHEN the news of the entire defeat of the army came to Athens by a ship* which arrived in the night at the Piræus, the city was in universal consternation. Nothing was heard but cries of sorrow and despair in every part of it. They imagined the enemy already at their gates. They represented to themselves the miseries of a long siege, a cruel famine, the ruin and burning of their city, the insolence of a proud victor, and the shameful slavery they were upon the point of experiencing, more afflicting and insupportable to them than the most severe punishments and death itself. The next day the assembly was summoned, wherein it was resolved to shut up all the ports, one only excepted, to repair the breaches in the walls, and mount guard to prepare against a siege. In effect, Agis and Pausanias, the two kings of Sparta, advanced towards Athens with all their troops. Lysander soon after arrived at the Piræus with 150 sail, and prevented all ships from going in or coming out. The Athenians, besieged by sea and land, without provisions, ships, hope of relief, or any resource, reinstated all persons attainted by any decree, without speaking the least word of a capitulation however, though many already died of famine. But when their corn was entirely consumed, they sent deputies to Agis to propose a treaty with Sparta, upon condition of abandoning all their possessions, the city and port only excepted. He referred the deputies to Lacedæmon, as not being empowered to treat with them. When they arrived at Salasia, upon the frontier of Sparta, and had made known their commission to the Ephori, they were ordered to retire, and to come with other proposals, if they expected peace. The Ephori had demanded that 1200 paces of the wall on each side of the Piræus should be demolished; but an Athenian, for venturing to advise a compliance, was * A. M. 3600. Ant. J. C. 404. Xenoph. Hellen. 1. ii. p. 458–462. Plut. in Lysand. p. 440, 441. |