Classical literature; Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.; Greece -- History -- Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 404-362 B.C.
Lysander, on his side, conveyed the ships and prisoners and all other
spoil back to Lampsacus, having on board some of the Athenian generals,
notably Philocles and Adeimantus. On the very day of these achievements
he despatched Theopompus, a Milesian privateersman, to Lacedaemon to
report what had taken place. This envoy arrived within three days and
delivered his message. Lysander's next step was to convene the allies
and bid them deliberate as to the treatment of the prisoners. Many were
the accusations here levied against the Athenians. There was talk of
crimes committed against the law of Hellas, and of cruelties sanctioned
by popular decrees; which, had they conquered in the late sea-fight,
would have been carried out; such as the proposal to cut off the right
hand of every prisoner taken alive, and lastly the ill-treatment of two
captured men-of-war, a Corinthian and an Andrian vessel, when every man
on board had been hurled headlong down the cliff. Philocles was the very
general of the Athenians who had so ruthlessly destroyed those men. Many
other tales were told; and at length a resolution was passed to put all
the Athenian prisoners, with the exception of Adeimantus, to death. He
alone, it was pleaded, had taken exception to the proposal to cut off
the prisoners' hands. On the other hand, he was himself accused by some
people of having betrayed the fleet. As to Philocles, Lysander put to
him one question, as the officer who had thrown (10) the Corinthians and
Andrians down the cliff: What fate did the man deserve to suffer who
had embarked on so cruel a course of illegality against Hellenes? and so
delivered him to the executioner.
(10) Reading {os... katekremnise}.
II
When he had set the affairs of Lampsacus in order, Lysander sailed to
Byzantium and Chalcedon, where the inhabitants, having first dismissed
the Athenian garrison under a flag of truce, admitted him within their
walls. Those citizens of Byzantium, who had betrayed Byzantium into
the hands of Alcibiades, fled as exiles into Pontus, but subsequently
betaking themselves to Athens, became Athenian citizens. In dealing with
the Athenian garrisons, and indeed with all Athenians wheresoever found,
Lysander made it a rule to give them safe conduct to Athens, and to
Athens only, in the certainty that the larger the number collected
within the city and Piraeus, the more quickly the want of necessaries of
life would make itself felt. And now, leaving Sthenelaus, a Laconian, as
governor-general of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he sailed back himself to
Lampsacus and devoted himself to refitting his ships.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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