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$Title{Rollin's Ancient History: History Of The Persians And Grecians
Section IV.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rollin, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{lysander
footnote
upon
alcibiades
fleet
himself
cyrus
enemy
ephesus
lacedaemonians}
$Date{1731}
$Log{}
Title:       Rollin's Ancient History: History Of The Persians And Grecians
Book:        Chapter VI.
Author:      Rollin, Charles
Date:        1731

Section IV.

The Lacedaemonians Appoint Lysander Admiral.

He Beats The Athenian Fleet Near Ephesus.

Lysander Is Succeeded In The Command By Callicratidas.

     The Lacedaemonians, justly alarmed at the return and success of
Alcibiades, conceived that such an enemy made it necessary to oppose him with
an able general, capable of making head against him.  For this reason they
made choice of Lysander, and gave him the command of the fleet.  When he
arrived at Ephesus, he found the city very well disposed in his favor, and
well affected to Sparta; but otherwise in a very unhappy situation.  For it
was in danger of becoming barbarous by assuming the manners and customs of the
Persians, who had great commerce with it, as well from the neighborhood of
Lydia, as because the king's generals commonly took up their winter-quarters
there.  An idle and voluptuous life, filled up with luxury and empty show,
could not fail of disgusting infinitely a man like Lysander, who had been bred
from his birth in the simplicity, poverty, and severe discipline of Sparta.
Having brought his army to Ephesus, he gave orders for assembling ships of
burden there from all parts, erected an arsenal for building galleys, made the
ports free for merchants, gave the public places to artificers, put all arts
in motion, and held them in honor; and by these means filled the city with
riches, and laid the foundations of that grandeur and magnificence to which it
afterwards attained.  So great a change can the application and ability of a
single person occasion in a state. ^622

[Footnote 622: Xenoph. Hellen. l. xi. pp. 440-442.  Plut. in Lysand. pp. 434,
435.  Diod. l. xiii. pp. 192-197.]

     While he was making these dispositions, he received advice, that Cyrus,
the king's youngest son, had arrived at Sardis.  That prince could not be
above sixteen years old at that time, being born after his father's accession
to the crown, in the seventeenth year of his reign. Parysatis, his mother,
loved him to idolatry, and had the entire ascendant over her husband.  It was
she that occasioned his having the supreme government of all the provinces of
Asia Minor given to him; a command that subjected all the provincial governors
of the most important part of the empire to his authority.  The view of
Parysatis was, without doubt, to put the young prince into a condition to
dispute the throne with his brother, after the king's death; as we shall see
he does to some effect.  One of the principal instructions given him by his
father, upon sending him to his government, was to give effectual aid to the
Lacedaemonians against Athens, an order very contrary to the measures observed
till then by Tissaphernes, and the other governors of those provinces.  It had
always been their maxim, sometimes to assist one party, sometimes the other,
in order to hold their power in such a balance, that the one might never be
able to crush the other entirely; from whence it followed, that both parties
were kept weak by the war, and neither in condition to form any enterprises
against the Persian empire.

     Upon Lysander's being apprised therefore of the arrival of Cyrus at
Sardis, he set out from Ephesus to make him a visit and to complain of the
delays and breach of faith of Tissaphernes, who, notwithstanding the orders he
had received to support the Lacedaemonians, and to drive the Athenians out of
the sea, had always covertly favored the latter, out of regard for Alcibiades,
to whom he was entirely devoted, and had been the sole cause of the loss of
the fleet, by not supplying it with the necessary quantity of provisions.
This discourse pleased Cyrus, who looked upon Tissaphernes as a very bad man,
and his particular enemy; and he answered, that the king had given him orders
to support the Lacedaemonians powerfully, and that he had received five
hundred talents ^623 for that purpose.  Lysander, contrary to the common
character of the Spartans, was submissive and condescending, full of
complacency for the grandees, always ready to pay court to them, and
supporting, for the good of the service, all the weight of their haughtiness
and vanity with incredible patience; in which behavior some people make the
whole address and merit of a courtier consist.

[Footnote 623: About five hundred thousand dollars.]

     He did not forget himself on this occasion, and setting at work all that
the industry and art of a complete courtier could suggest of flattery and
insinuation, he perfectly gained the young prince's favor and good opinion.
After having praised his generosity, magnificence and zeal for the
Lacedaemonians, he desired him to give each soldier and mariner a drachm ^624
per day: in order to debauch those of the enemy by that means, and thereby
terminate the war the sooner.  Cyrus very much approved the project; but said,
that he could make no change in the king's order, and that the treaty with
them expressly settled one half a talent ^625 to be paid monthly for each
galley.  The prince, however, at the end of a banquet, which he gave them
before his departure, drinking to his health, and pressing him to ask
something of him, Lysander desired that an obolus ^626 a day might be added to
seamen's pay.  This was granted, and he gave them four oboli, instead of three
which they received before, and paid them all the arrears due to them, with a
mouth's advance; giving Lysander ten thousand darics ^627 for that purpose,
that is, a hundred thousand livres, or upwards of twenty thousand dollars.

[Footnote 624: Tenpence, French.]

[Footnote 625: Nearly 500 dollars.]

[Footnote 626: The drachm was six oboli, or tenpence, French; each obolus
being three halfpence; so that the four oboli were sixpence halfpenny a day,
instead of fivepence, or three oboli.]

[Footnote 627: A Daric is about $ 1.87 1/2]

     This largess filled the whole fleet with ardon and alacrity, and almost
unmanned the enemy's galleys; the greatest part of the mariners deserting to
the party where the pay was best.  The Athenians, in despair upon receiving
this news, endeavored to conciliate Cyrus, by the interposition of
Tissaphernes; but he would not hearken to them, notwithstanding the satrap
represented, that it was not for the king's interest to aggrandize the
Lacedaemonians, but to balance the power of one side with that of the other,
in order to perpetuate the war, and to ruin both by their own divisions.

     Though Lysander had considerably weakened the enemy by augmenting the
mariner's pay, and thereby very much hurt their naval power, he dared not,
however, hazard a battle with them, particularly apprehending Alcibiades, who
was a man of execution, had the greater number of ships, and had never been
overthrown in any battle either by sea or land.  But after Alcibiades had left
Samos to go into Phocaea and Ionia, to raise money, of which he was in want
for the payment of his troops, and had given the command of his fleet to
Antiochus, with express orders not to fight or attack the enemy in his
absence; the new commander, to make show of his courage and to brave Lysander,
entered the port of Ephesus with two galleys, and after having made a great
noise, retired with loud laughter, and an air of contempt and insult.
Lysander, enraged at that affront, immediately detached some galleys, and went
himself in pursuit of him.  But as the Athenians advanced to support
Antiochus, he ordered other galleys of his side to come on, till the whole
fleet arrived, and the engagement became general on both sides.  Lysander
gained the victory, and having taken fifteen of the Athenian galleys, he
erected a trophy.  Alcibiades, on his return to Samos, sailed even into the
port to offer him battle; but Lysander was contented with his victory, and did
not think proper to accept it; so he retired without doing any thing.

     Thrasybulus at the same time, the most dangerous enemy he had in his
army, left the camp, and went to Athens to accuse him.  To inflame his enemies
in the city the more, he told the people in a full assembly, that Alcibiades
had entirely ruined their affairs, and the navy, by the licentiousness he had
introduced; that he had given himself up to the most notorious debauchees and
drunkards, ^628 who from common seamen were the only persons in repute about
him; that he abandoned his whole authority to them, to be at leisure to enrich
himself in the provinces, and there to plunge himself into intemperance and
all other infamous excesses, to the disgrace of Athens, while his fleet was
left neglected in the face of the enemy. ^629

[Footnote 628: Antiochus is pointed at in this place, a mean debauched man,
who had acquired the favor of Alcibiades, by catching a quail for him, which
he had let fly.]

[Footnote 629: A. M. 3598.  Ant. J. C. 416.]

     Another article of accusation against him was taken from the forts he had
built near the city of Byzantium, for an asylum and retreat for him, as
neither being able nor willing to return any more to his country.  The
Athenians, a capricious, inconstant people, gave credit to these impeachments.
The loss of the last battle, and his little success since his departure from
Athens, instead of the great and wonderful actions expected from him, entirely
sunk him in their opinion; and his own glory and reputation may be said to
have occasioned his ruin.  For he was suspected of not desiring to do what was
not done, which they could not believe out of his power, because they were
fully persuaded that nothing he desired to do was impossible to him.  They
made it a crime in Alcibiades, that the rapidity of his conquests did not
answer to that of their imaginations; not considering, that he made war
without money upon a people who had the great king for their treasurer, and
that he was often obliged to quit his camp, to go in quest of what was
necessary for the payment and subsistence of his troops.  However it was,
Alcibiades was deposed, and ten generals nominated in his stead, which coming
to his knowledge, he retired in his galley to some castles he had in the
Thracian Chersonesus.

     About this time died Plistonax, one of the kings of Lacedaemon, and was
succeeded by Pausanias, who reigned fourteen years. ^630 The latter made a
fine answer to one who asked, why it was not permitted to change any thing in
the ancient customs of Sparta: "Because," said he, "at Sparta the laws command
men, and not men the laws." ^631

[Footnote 630: Diod. l. xiii. p. 196.]

[Footnote 631: Plut. in Apoph. p. 230.]

     Lysander, who intended to establish the government of the nobility in all
the cities dependent upon Sparta, that the governors of his choosing might
always be at his disposal, from his having rendered them independent of their
people, caused such persons of the principal cities to come to Ephesus, as he
knew to be the boldest, and most enterprising and ambitious.  Those he placed
at the head of affairs, promoted to the greatest honors, and raised to the
first employments in the army, thereby rendering himself, says Plutarch, the
accomplice of all the crimes and oppressions they committed to advance and
enrich themselves.  For this reason they were always extremely attached to
him, and regretted him infinitely when Callicratidas came to succeed him, and
took upon him the command of the fleet.  He was not inferior to Lysander
either in valor or military knowledge, and was infinitely above him in point
of moral virtue.  Alike severe to himself and others, inaccessible to flattery
and sloth, the declared enemy of luxury, he retained the modesty, temperance,
and austerity of the ancient Spartans; virtues that began to distinguish him
particularly, as they were not too common in his time.  His probity and
justice were proof against all things; his simplicity and integrity abhorred
all falsehood and fraud, to which were joined a truly Spartan nobleness and
grandeur of soul.  The great and powerful could not hinder themselves from
admiring his virtues; but they were better pleased with the facility and
condescension of his predecessor, who was blind to the injustice and violence
of their actions. ^632

[Footnote 632: Xen. Hellen. l. i. pp. 442-444.  Plut. in Lysand. pp. 433-436.
Diod. l. xiii. pp. 197, 198.]

     It was not without mortification and jealousy that Lysander saw him
arrive at Ephesus to take upon him the command, and out of a criminal baseness
and treachery, not uncommon with those who hearken more to their private
ambition than the good of the public, he did him all the injury in his power.
Of the ten thousand darics, which Cyrus had given him for the augmentation of
the mariners' pay, he returned the remainder to that prince: telling
Callicratidas, that he might apply to the king for the money, and that it
depended on him to find means for the subsistence of his army.  This conduct
gave him great trouble and distressed him exceedingly; for he had brought no
money with him from Sparta, and could not resolve to extort any from the
citizens, as he found them sufficiently rifled already.

     In this urgent necessity, a person having offered him fifty talents, that
is to say, fifty thousand crowns, to obtain a favor he could not grant with
justice, he refused them.  Upon which Cleander, one of his officers, said, "I
would accept them were I in your place." "And so would I," replied the
general, "were I in yours." ^633

[Footnote 633: Plut. in Apoph. p. 222.]

     He had no other resource therefore than to go, as Lysander had done, to
ask money at the gates of the king's general and lieutenants, for which he was
the least proper of all mankind.  Nurtured and educated in the love of
liberty, full of great and noble sentiments, and infinitely remote from all
flattery and baseness, he was convinced at heart, that it was less evil and
dishonor for Greeks to be overcome by Greeks, than infamously to make their
court, and beg at the gates of barbarians, whose only merit consisted in their
gold and silver.  The whole nation was indeed disgraced by so mean a
prostitution.

     Cicero, in his offices, draws two very different characters of persons
employed in the administration of government, and makes the application of
them to the two generals of whom we speak.  The one, says he, zealous lovers
of the truth, and declared enemies of all fraud, piqued themselves upon their
simplicity and candor, and do not believe that it can ever consist with honor
to lay snares, or use artifice.  The others, prepared to do or suffer any
thing, are not ashamed of the meanest actions and prostitutions, provided,
from those unworthy means, they have reason to expect the success of their
designs.  Cicero places Callicratidas among the former, and Lysander among the
latter, to whom he gives two epitaphs not much to his honor, and hardly
consistent with the Spartan character, when he calls him "very artful and very
patient," or rather "very complaisant." ^634

[Footnote 634: Sunt his alii multum dispares, simplices et aperti; qui nihil
ex occulto, nihil ex insidiis agendum putant; veritatis cultores, fraudis
inimici: itemque alii, qui quidvis perpetiantur, cuivis deserviant, dum, quod
velint, consequan tur.  Quo in genere versatissimum et patientissimum
Lacedaemonium Lysan drum accepimus, contraque Callicratidem.  Offic. l. i. n.
109.]

     Callicratidas, however, forced by necessity, went to Lydia, and repaired
immediately to the palace of Cyrus, where he desired that prince might be told
that the admiral of the Grecian fleet was come to speak with him.  He was
answered, that Cyrus was then at the table, engaged in a party of pleasure;
^635 to which he replied with a modest tone and air, that he was in no haste,
and would wait till the prince came forth.  The guards set up a laugh,
wondering at the honest stranger's simplicity, which had so little the air of
the world in it; and he was obliged to retire.  He came thither a second time
and was again denied admittance.  Upon which he returned to Ephesus, loading
those with curses and imprecations who had first made their court to
barbarians, and by their flattery and submissions had taught them to make
their riches a title and pretence for insulting the rest of mankind.
Addressing himself at the same time to those about him, he swore, that as soon
as he returned to Sparta, he would use his utmost endeavors to reconcile the
Greeks among themselves, that for the future they might become formidable to
the barbarians and have no farther occasion for their aid to invade and ruin
each other.  But that generous Spartan, whose thoughts were so noble, and so
worthy the Lacedaemonian name, and whose justice, magnanimity, and valor,
might rank him with all that Greece had ever produced of the most excellent
and most consummate, had not the good fortune to return to his country, nor to
apply himself to a work so great and so worthy of him.

[Footnote 635: The Greek says literally that he was drinking. The Persians
valued themselves upon drinking a great deal, as an instance of their merit,
as we shall see in Cryrus's letter to the Lacedaemonians.]