Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

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 god, and he was the first in whose honour pæans were sung, one of which is recorded as having begun as follows:

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

Nay, the Samians decreed that their festival, called Heræa in honour of Hera, should be called Lysandreia. He always kept the poet Chœrilus 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 massacre 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 Æteokles the Lacedæmonian 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 Lacedæmonians paid no attention to complaints brought against him; but when Pharnabazus, who had been wronged by Lysander's depredations on his country, sent an embassy 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 Hellespont, 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 substituted the privately-written one for that which Lysander had seen. When then Lysander reached Lacedæmon, 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 Lacedæmonians, 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 Aphytæ, a city in Thrace, the god Ammon appeared to him in a dream; in consequence of which he raised the siege, imagining this to be the will of the god, ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Ammon, and himself made preparations for proceeding at once to Libya to propitiate the god. 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 Lacedæmonians to assist 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 assist 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 classes 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 Lacedæmonians 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 Bœotians, who wished to remain neutral, whether he should pass through their country with spears held upright or levelled. On the occasion of the revolt of Corinth, when he brought up the Lacedæmonians to assault 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 Timæa 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 Heræa 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 Lacedæmonians. They did indeed so testify in favour of Leotychides; and although Agesilaus was a man of great distinction, and had the powerful assistance 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 god 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.