was disregarded, and the proposal of Callixenus was carried. The generals were condemned, delivered over to the Eleven for execution, and compelled to drink the fatal hemlock. Among them was Pericles, the son of the celebrated statesman. The Athenians afterwards repented of their rash precipitation, and decreed that Callixenus and his accomplices should in their turn be brought to trial; but before the appointed day they managed to escape.

§ 19. After the battle of Arginusæ the Athenian fleet seems to have remained inactive at Samos during the rest of the year. Through the influence of Cyrus, and the other allies of Sparta, Lysander again obtained the command of the Peloponnesian fleet at the commencement of the year 405 B. C.; though nominally under Aracus as admiral; since it was contrary to Spartan usage that the same man should be twice Navarchus.* His return to power was marked by more vigorous measures. Fresh funds were obtained from Cyrus; the arrears due to the seamen were paid up; and new triremes were put upon the stocks at Antandrus. Oligarchical revolutions were effected in Miletus and other towns. Summoned to visit his sick father in Media, Cyrus even delegated to Lysander the management of his satrapy and revenues during his absence. Lysander was thus placed in possession of power never before realized by any Lacedæmonian commander. But the Athenian fleet under Conon and his coadjutors was still superior in numbers, and Lysander carefully avoided an engagement. He contrived, however, to elude the Athenian fleet, and to cross the Egean to the coast of Attica, where he had an interview with Agis; and, proceeding thence to the Hellespont, which Conon had left unguarded, he took up his station at Abydos.

§ 20. The Athenians were at this time engaged in ravaging Chios; but when they heard of this movement, and that Lysander had commenced the siege of Lampsacus, they immediately sailed for the Hellespont. They arrived too late to save the town, but they proceeded up the strait and took post at Ægospotami, or the "Goat's River"; a place which had nothing to recommend it, except its vicinity to Lampsacus, from which it was separated by a channel somewhat less than two miles broad. It was a mere desolate beach, without houses or inhabitants, so that all the supplies had to be fetched from Sestos, or from the surrounding country, and the seamen were compelled to leave their ships in order to obtain their meals. Under these circumstances the Athenians were very desirous of bringing Lysander to an engagement. But the Spartan commander, who was in a strong position, and abundantly supplied with provisions, was in no hurry to run any risks. In vain did the Athenians sail over several days in succession to offer him battle; they always found his ships ready manned, and drawn up in too strong a position to

*Lysander received the title of Epistoleus. See note on p. 336.

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warrant an attack; nor could they by all their manoeuvres succeed in enticing him out to combat. This cowardice, as they deemed it, on the part of the Lacedæmonians, begat a corresponding negligence on theirs discipline was neglected, and the men allowed to straggle almost at will. It was in vain that Alcibiades, who since his dismissal resided in a fortress in that neighborhood, remonstrated with the Athenian generals on the exposed nature of the station they had chosen, and advised them to proceed to Sestos. His counsels were received with taunts and insults. At length, on the fifth day, Lysander, having watched an opportunity when the Athenian seamen had gone on shore and were dispersed over the country, rowed swiftly across the strait with all his ships. He found the Athenian fleet, with the exception of ten or twelve vessels, totally unprepared, and succeeded in capturing nearly the whole of it, without having occasion to strike a single blow. Of the hundred and eighty ships which composed the fleet, only the trireme of Conon himself, the Paralus, and eight or ten other vessels, succeeded in escaping. Conon was afraid to return to Athens after so signal a disaster, and took refuge with Evagoras, prince of Salamis, in Cyprus. All the Athenian prisoners, amounting to three or four thousand, together with the generals, were put to death by order of Lysander, in retaliation for the cruelty with which the Athenians had treated the prisoners they had lately made.

By this momentous victory, which was suspected to have been achieved through the corrupt connivance of some of the Athenian generals, the contest on the Hellespont, and virtually the Peloponnesian war, was brought to an end. The closing scene of the catastrophe was enacted at Athens itself; but the fate of the imperial city must be reserved for another chapter

§ 1. Alarm at Athens. 2. Proceedings of Lysander. Capture of the Athenian Dependencies. 3. Measures of the Athenians. Athens invested. § 4. Embassy of Theramenes. Conditions of Capitulation. § 5. Lysander takes Possession of Athens. Destruction of the Long Walls, &c. § 6. Return of the Oligarchical Exiles. Establishment of the Thirty. § 7. Surrender of Samos and Triumph of Lysander. § 8. Proceedings of the Thirty at Athens. 9. Opposition of Theramenes. 10. Proscriptions. Death of Theramenes. § 11. Suppression of Intellectual Culture. Socrates. 12. Death of Alcibiades. § 13. Jealousy of the Grecian States towards Sparta and Lysander. § 14. Thrasybulus at Phylé. 15. Seizure and Massacre of the Eleusinians. § 16. Thrasybulus occupies Peiræus. Death of Critias. § 17. Deposition of the Thirty, and Establishment of the Ten. Return of Lysander to Athens, and Arrival of Pausanias. 18. Peace with Thrasybulus, and Evacuation of Attica by the Peloponnesians. 19. Restoration of the Democracy. 20. Archonship of Euclides. Reduction of Eleusis.

§ 1. THE defeat of Egospotami, which took place about September, 405 B. C., was announced at Peiræus in the night, by the arrival of the Paralus. "On that night," says Xenophon, "no man slept." The disaster, indeed, was as sudden and as authentic as it was vast and irretrievable. The proceedings of the dejected assembly which met on the

following day at once showed that the remaining struggle was one for bare existence. In order to make the best preparations for a siege, it was resolved to block up two of the three ports of Athens, a plain confession that maritime supremacy, the sole basis of her power, had departed from her.

§ 2. Lysander, secure of an easy triumph, was in no haste to gather it by force. The command of the Euxine enabled him to control the supplies of Athens; and, sooner or later, a few weeks of famine must decide her fall. With the view of hastening the catastrophe, he compelled the garrisons of all the towns which surrendered to proceed to the capital. The question was not one of arms, but of hunger; and an additional garrison, so far from adding to her strength, would complete her weakness. A strong proof of the insecure foundation of her power! A naval defeat in a remote quarter had not only deprived her of empire, but was about to render her in turn a captive and a subject.

Lysander now sailed forth to take possession of the Athenian towns, which fell one after another into his power as soon as he appeared before them. In all a new form of government was established, consisting of an oligarchy of ten of the citizens, called a decarchy, under a Spartan harmost. Chalcedon, Byzantium, Mytilené, surrendered to Lysander himself; whilst Eteonicus was despatched to occupy and revolutionize the Athenian towns in Thrace. Amidst the general defection, Samos alone remained faithful to Athens. All her other dependencies at once yielded to the Lacedæmonians; whilst her cleruchs were forced to abandon their possessions and return home. In many places, and especially in Thasos, these revolutions were attended with violence and bloodshed.

§ 3. The situation of Athens was now more desperate even than when Xerxes was advancing against her with his countless host. The juncture demanded the hearty co-operation of all her citizens; and a general amnesty was proposed and carried for the purpose of releasing all debtors, accused persons, and state prisoners, except a few of the more desperate criminals and homicides. The citizens were then assembled in the Acropolis, and swore a solemn oath of mutual forgiveness and harmony.

About November Lysander made his appearance at Ægina, with an overwhelming fleet of one hundred and fifty triremes, and proceeded to devastate Salamis and blockade Peiræus. At the same time the whole Peloponnesian army was marched into Attica, and encamped in the precincts of the Academia, at the very gates of Athens.* Famine soon began to be felt within the walls. Yet the Athenians did not abate of their pretensions. In their proposals for a capitulation, they demanded the preservation of their long walls, and of the port of Peiræus. But the Spartan Ephors, to

* The words of Xenophon are πρὸς τὴν πόλιν ἐστρατοπέδευσεν ἐν τῇ ̓Ακαδημία, το Kadovμéva yvμvario. It was about a mile north of the city. — ED.

whom the Athenian envoys had been referred by King Agis, refused to listen to such terms, and insisted on the demolition of the long walls for the space of ten stadia at least. The spirit of the people, however, was still so unsubdued — though some of them were actually dying of hunger that the senator Archestratus was imprisoned for proposing to accept the terms offered by the Ephors; and on the motion of Cleophon, it was forbidden to make any such proposal in future.

§ 4. Theramenes, formerly one of the Four Hundred, now offered to proceed to Lysander for the purpose of learning his real intentions with regard to the fate of Athens; and as he pretended that his personal connections would afford him great facilities in such an undertaking, his offer was accepted. After wasting three months with Lysander, three months of terrible suffering to the Athenians, he said that Lysander had then informed him for the first time that the Ephors alone had power to treat. The only construction that can be put on this conduct of Theramenes is, that he designed to reduce the Athenians to the last necessity, so that they should be compelled to purchase peace at any price. If such was his object he completely succeeded. When he returned to Athens the famine had become so dreadful, that he was immediately sent back to conclude a peace on whatever terms he could. In the debate which ensued at Sparta, the Thebans, the Corinthians, and others of the more bitter enemies of Athens, urged the very extinction of her name and the sale of her whole population into slavery. But this proposition was resolutely opposed by the Lacedæmonians, who declared, with great appearance of magnanimity, though probably with a view to their own interest in converting Athens into a useful dependency, that they would never consent to enslave or annihilate a city which had rendered such eminent services to Greece. The terms which the Ephors dictated, and which the Athenians were in no condition to refuse, were, that the long walls and the fortifications of Peiræus should be demolished; that the Athenians should give up all their foreign possessions, and confine themselves to their own territory; that they should surrender all their ships of war; that they should readmit all their exiles; and that they should become allies of Sparta. As Theramenes re-entered Athens, bearing in his hand the roll, or scytalé, which contained these terms, he was pressed upon by an anxious and haggard crowd, who, heedless of the terms, gave loud vent to their joy that peace was at length concluded. And though there was still a small minority for holding out, the vote for accepting the conditions was carried, and notified to Lysander.

§ 5. It was about the middle or end of March, B. c. 404, that Lysander sailed into Peiræus, and took formal possession of Athens; the war, in singular conformity with the prophecies current at the beginning of it, having lasted for a period of thrice nine, or twenty-seven years. The Lacedæmonian fleet and army remained in possession of the city till the