Lysander had come out to supersede Kratesippidas, about December, 408 B.C., or January, 407 B.C.[200] He was the last, after Brasidas and Gylippus, of that trio of eminent Spartans, from whom all the capital wounds of Athens proceeded, during the course of this long war. He was born of poor parents, and is even said to have been of that class called mothakes, being only enabled by the aid of richer men to keep up his contribution to the public mess, and his place in the constant drill and discipline. He was not only an excellent officer,[201] thoroughly competent to the duties of military command, but possessed also great talents for intrigue, and for organizing a political party as well as keeping up its disciplined movements. Though indifferent to the temptations either of money or of pleasure,[202] and willingly acquiescing in the poverty to which he was born, he was altogether unscrupulous in the prosecution of ambitious objects, either for his country or for himself. His family, poor as it was, enjoyed a dignified position at Sparta, belonging to the gens of the Herakleidæ, not connected by any near relationship with the kings: moreover, his personal reputation as a Spartan was excellent, since his observance of the rules of discipline had been rigorous and exemplary. The habits of self-constraint thus acquired, served him in good stead when it became necessary to his ambition to court the favor of the great. His recklessness about falsehood and perjury is illustrated by various current sayings ascribed to him; such as, that children were to be taken in by means of dice; men, by means of oaths.[203] A selfish ambition—for promoting the power of his country not merely in connection with, but in subservience to, his own—guided him from the beginning to the end of his career. In this main quality, he agreed with Alkibiadês; in reckless immorality of means, he went even beyond him. He seems to have been cruel; an attribute which formed no part of the usual character of Alkibiadês. On the other hand, the love of personal enjoyment, luxury, and ostentation, which counted for so much in Alkibiadês, was quite unknown to Lysander. The basis of his disposition was Spartan, tending to merge appetite, ostentation, and expansion of mind, all in the love of command and influence,—not Athenian, which tended to the development of many and diversified impulses; ambition being one, but only one, among the number. [200] The commencement of Lysander’s navarchy, or year of maritime command, appears to me established for this winter. He had been some time actually in his command before Cyrus arrived at Sardis: Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ~πρότερον τούτων οὐ πολλῷ χρόνῳ~ Κρατησιππίδᾳ τῆς ναυαρχίας παρεληλυθυίας, Λύσανδρον ἐξέπεμψαν ναύαρχον. Ὁ δὲ ἀφικόμενος εἰς Ῥόδον καὶ ναῦς ἐκεῖθεν λαβών, ἐς Κῶ καὶ Μίλητον ἔπλευσεν· ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἐς Ἔφεσον· καὶ ~ἐκεῖ ἔμεινε~, ναῦς ἔχων ἑβδομήκοντα, ~μέχρις οὗ Κῦρος ἐς Σάρδεις ἀφίκετο~ (Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5, 1).