Lysander
Lysander | |
---|---|
Native name | Λύσανδρος |
Born | c. 454 BC[1] |
Died | 395 BC (aged c. 59) Haliartus |
Allegiance | Sparta |
Rank | Navarch |
Battles/wars |
Lysander (/laɪˈsændər, ˈlaɪˌsændər/; Greek: Λύσανδρος Lysandros; c. 454 BC – 395 BC) was a Spartan military and political leader. He destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, forcing Athens to capitulate and bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end. He then played a key role in Sparta's domination of Greece for the next decade until his death at the Battle of Haliartus.
Lysander's vision for Sparta differed from most Spartans; he wanted to overthrow the Athenian Empire and replace it with Spartan hegemony.[2]
Early life
Little is known of Lysander's early life. His year of birth is estimated at 454 BC.[1] Some ancient authors record that his mother was a helot or slave.[3] Lysander's father was Aristocritus,[4] who was a member of the Spartan Heracleidae; that is, he claimed descent from Heracles but was not a member of a royal family. According to Plutarch, Lysander grew up in poverty and showed himself obedient, conformed to norms, and had a "manly spirit".[5]
It was custom in the Spartan upbringing for a young adult to be assigned as the "inspirer" (eispnelas) or "lover" (erastes) of an adolescent, and Lysander was matched in this role with the future king Agesilaus, the younger son of Archidamus II.[6] Nothing is known of Lysander's actual career before he was elected, in 408 BC, to Sparta's annual office of admiral, to conduct the long-running Peloponnesian War against Athens.[7]
Admiral
From
As Lysander was fitting out his vessels at Ephesus, an Athenian fleet roughly the size of his own, led by the famous
However, Lysander ceased to be the Spartan
Vice-admiral
After Callicratidas was defeated and killed at the
Lysander finally set sail with some 125–150 ships, and among his early actions, which are variously reported by the sources, were the massacre and enslavement of the population of Iasus and
Now in full command of the seas, Lysander began touring the Aegean to receive the surrender of enemy strongholds, ordering all captured Athenian garrisons and
Following an unsuccessful attempt to bring about Athens's surrender with a show of force off Attica in autumn 405 BC, Lysander began establishing contacts with Athenian oligarchic exiles and sponsored their return to the city as one of the conditions for peace,[28] which was finally concluded in spring 404 BC. Lysander received the surrender of the last of Athens's allies, Samos, in the summer of 404 BC, after which he went in person to Athens in response to an appeal by Athenian oligarchs. On the anniversary of the battle of Salamis, Lysander sailed into the Piraeus, ordered the razing of Athens's city walls and the burning of its fleet, and sent for female flautists from the city to play music as the deed was carried out. He also oversaw a meeting of the Athenian assembly which effectively abolished Athens's democracy and replaced it with a governing board of thirty oligarchs (the Thirty Tyrants).[29]
Command in Athens
After storming and seizing Samos, Lysander returned to Sparta. Alcibiades, the former Athenian leader, emerged after the Spartan victory at Aegospotami and took refuge in
Lysander amassed a huge fortune from his victories against the Athenians and brought the riches home to Sparta. For centuries the possession of money was illegal in Lacedaemonia, but the newly minted navy required funds and Persia could not be trusted to maintain financial support. Roman historian Plutarch strongly condemns Lysander's introduction of money;[5] despite being publicly held, he argues its mere presence corrupted rank-and-file Spartans who witnessed their government's newfound value for it. Corruption quickly followed; while general Gylippus ferried treasure home, he embezzled a great amount and was condemned to death in absentia.
Resistance by Athens
The Athenian general
The Battle of Piraeus was then fought between Athenian exiles who had defeated the government of the Thirty Tyrants and occupied Piraeus and a Spartan force sent to combat them. In the battle, the Spartans defeated the exiles, despite their stiff resistance. Despite opposition from Lysander, after the battle Pausanias the Agiad King of Sparta, arranged a settlement between the two parties which allowed the re-establishment of democratic government in Athens.
Final years
Lysander still had influence in Sparta despite his setbacks in Athens. He was able to persuade the Spartans to select
Hoping to restore the juntas of oligarchic partisans that he had put in place after the defeat of the Athenians in 404 BC, Lysander arranged for Agesilaus II, the Eurypontid Spartan king, to take command of the Greeks against Persia in 396 BC. The Spartans had been called on by the Ionians to assist them against the Persian King Artaxerxes II. Lysander was arguably hoping to receive command of the Spartan forces not joining the campaign. However, Agesilaus had become resentful of Lysander's power and influence. So Agesilaus frustrated the plans of his former mentor and left Lysander in command of the troops in the Hellespont, far from Sparta and mainland Greece.
Back in Sparta by 395 BC, Lysander was instrumental in starting a war with Thebes and other Greek cities, which came to be known as the Corinthian War. The Spartans prepared to send out an army against this new alliance of Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Argos (with the backing of the Achaemenid Empire) and ordered Agesilaus to return to Greece. Agesilaus set out for Sparta with his troops, crossing the Hellespont and marching west through Thrace.
Death
The Spartans arranged for two armies, one under Lysander and the other under
Following his death, an abortive scheme by Lysander to increase his power by making the Spartan kingships collective and that the Spartan king should not automatically be given the leadership of the army, was "discovered" by Agesilaus II.[5][33] There is argument amongst historians as to whether this was an invention to discredit Lysander after his death. However, in the view of Nigel Kennell, the plot fits with what we know of Lysander.[34]
Legacy
Lysander is one of the main protagonists of the history of Greece by Xenophon, a contemporary. For other (later) sources he remains an ambiguous figure. For instance, while the Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos charges him with "cruelty and perfidy",[33] Lysander – according to Xenophon – nonetheless spared the population of captured Greek poleis such as Lampsacus.[30]
The Westland Lysander aircraft has been named after him.
Commemoration
According to Duris of Samos, Lysander was the first Greek to whom the cities erected altars and sacrificed to him as to a god and the Samians voted that their festival of Hera should be called Lysandreia.[35] He was also the first Greek who had songs of triumph written about him.[5]
Saying attributed to Lysander
- "Where the lion's skin does not reach, it must be patched with the fox's".[36]
- He boasted about cheating "boys with knuckle-bones and men with oaths".[36]
Sources
- Bommelaer, Jean-François (1981). Lysandre de Sparte. Histoire et traditions (in French). Paris: De Boccard.
References
- ^ a b Detlef Lotze, Lysander und der Peloponnesische Krieg, Berlin: Akademie (1964), 13
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire, Cornell University, 1987, p. 300. [ISBN missing]
- ^ Smith, William (1867). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. Boston: Little, Brown and co. p. 861.
- ISBN 978-0-521-89330-5.. Some manuscript sources have "Aristocleitus", but "Aristocritus" appears in contemporary inscriptions, e.g. Inscriptiones GraecaeII2 1388, l. 32.
- ^ a b c d e f Plutarch, Lives. Life of Lysander. (University of Massachusetts/Wikisource)
- ^ Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, London: Duckworth, 1987, 29
- ^ Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, London: Duckworth, 1987, 79
- ^ Rollin, Charles (1851). The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Grecians, and Macedonians. W. Tegg and Company. p. 110.
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 301
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 36, 37; Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 305–306
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 37
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 37–38; Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, London: Duckworth, 1987, 81; Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 306–307
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 310
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 310–311
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 317–318, 319
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 318
- ^ "Spartans, a new history", Nigel Kennell, 2010, p. 126
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 38, 39, 60
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 380
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 380- 381; Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 39
- ^ Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, London: Duckworth, 1987, 91; Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 382–383
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 39
- ^ Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 385–386; Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 40
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 43, 45, 163
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 44, 59
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 65, 85; Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, London: Duckworth, 1987, 91, 93
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 44; Nigel M. Kennell, Spartans: A New History, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 202
- ^ Charles D. Hamilton, Sparta's Bitter Victories: Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979, 62–63; Mark Munn, The School of History: Athens in the Age of Socrates, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 204, 407 (note 22)
- ^ Mark Munn, The School of History: Athens in the Age of Socrates, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 220
- ^ a b c Xenophon, Hellenica. (Wikisource/Gutenberg Project)
- ^ Cartledge, Agesilaos, pp. 28, 29.
- ^ Hamilton, Agesilaus, p. 19.
- ^ a b Cornelius Nepos, Life of Eminent Greeks .[1]
- ^ "Spartans, a new history", Nigel Kennell, 2010, p. 134
- ISBN 0-674-38726-0
- ^ a b Kagan, Donald, The Fall of the Athenian Empire, p. 383.
External links
- Ancient/classical history (Lysander) – About.com
- Lysander by Plutarch – The Internet Classics Archive on MIT