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LYSANDER (Gr. Abcavdpos)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 182 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LYSANDER (Gr. Abcavdpos) , son of Aristocritus, Spartan See also:admiral and diplomatist. See also:Aelian (See also:Var. Hist. xii. 43) and See also:Phylarchus (ap. Athen. vi. 271 e) say that he was a mothax, i.e. the son of a helot See also:mother (see See also:HELOTS)., but this tradition is at least doubtful; according to See also:Plutarch he was a Heraclid, though not of either royal See also:family. We do not know how he See also:rose to See also:eminence: he first appears as admiral of the Spartan See also:navy in 407 B.C. The See also:story of his See also:influence with See also:Cyrus the Younger, his See also:naval victory off Notium, his See also:quarrel with his successor Callicratidas in 406, his See also:appointment as bred roXevs in 405, his decisive victory at See also:Aegospotami, and his See also:share in the See also:siege and See also:capitulation of See also:Athens belong to the See also:history of the Peloponnesian See also:War (q.v.). By 404 he was the most powerful See also:man in the See also:Greek See also:world and set about completing the task of See also:building up a Spartan See also:empire in which he should be supreme in fact if not in name. Everywhere democracies were replaced by oligarchies directed by bodies of ten men (decarchies, SeKapXiai) under the See also:control of Spartan See also:governors (harmosts, apuovrai). But Lysander's boundless influence and ambition, and the superhuman honours paid him, roused the See also:jealousy of the See also:kings and the ephors, and, on being accused by the See also:Persian See also:satrap See also:Pharnabazus, he was recalled to See also:Sparta.

Soon afterwards he was sent to Athens with an See also:

army to aid the oligarchs, but See also:Pausanias, one of the kings, followed him and brought about a restoration of See also:democracy. On the See also:death of See also:Agis II., Lysander secured the See also:succession of Agesilaus (q.v.), whom he hoped to find amenable to his influence. But in this he was disappointed. Though chosen to accompany the See also:king to See also:Asia as one of his See also:thirty advisers (o pj3ovXot), he was kept in-active and his influence was broken by studied affronts, and finally he was sent at his own See also:request as See also:envoy to the See also:Hellespont. He soon returned to Sparta to mature plans for overthrowing the hereditary kingship and substituting an elective See also:monarchy open to all Heraclids, or even, according to another version, to all Spartiates. But his alleged attempts to bribe the oracles were fruitless, and his schemes were cut See also:short by the outbreak of war with See also:Thebes in 395. Lysander invaded See also:Boeotia from the See also:west, receiving the submission of See also:Orchomenus and sacking Lebadea, but the enemy intercepted his despatch to Pausanias, who had meanwhile entered Boeotia from the See also:south, containing plans for a See also:joint attack upon Haliartus. The See also:town was at once strongly garrisoned, and when Lysander marched against it he was defeated and slain. He was buried in the territory of Panopeus, the nearest Phocian See also:city. An able See also:commander and an adroit diplomatist, Lysander was fired by the ambition to make Sparta supreme in See also:Greece and himself in Sparta. To this end he shrank from no treachery or See also:cruelty; yet, like Agesilaus, he was totally See also:free from the characteristic Spartan See also:vice of avarice, and died, as he had lived, a poor man. See the See also:biographies by Plutarch and See also:Nepos; Xen.

Hellenica, 5 ; Diod. Sic. xiii. 70 sqq., 104 sqq;, xiv. 3, 10, 13, 81; See also:

Lysias xii. 60 sqq.; See also:Justin v. 5-7; See also:Polyaenus i. 45, vii. 19; Pausanias iii., ix. 32, 5-10, X. 9, 7-11; C. A. Gehlert, Vita Lysandri (See also:Bautzen, 1874) ; W.

See also:

Vischer, Alkibiades and Lysandros (See also:Basel, 1845); O. H. J. See also:Nitzsch, De Lysandro (See also:Bonn, 1847) ; and the Greek histories in See also:general. , (M. N.

End of Article: LYSANDER (Gr. Abcavdpos)

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