XIV. After spending a short time in arranging these matters and having sent messengers to Laconia to announce that he was coming thither with a fleet of two hundred ships, he joined the Spartan kings, Agis and Pausanias, in Attica, and expected that the city of Athens would soon fall into his hands. Finding, however, that the Athenians made an obstinate defence, he crossed over to Asia again with the fleet. Here he overthrew the existing constitutions and established governments of ten in all the cities alike, putting many citizens to death, and driving many into exile. He drove out all the inhabitants from the island of Samos in a body, and handed over the cities in that island to those who had previously been banished. He also took Sestos from the Athenians, and would not allow the people of Sestos to live there, but gave the city and territory over to those who had acted as steersmen and masters on board of his ships. This indeed was the first of his acts which was cancelled by the Lacedæmonians, who restored Sestos to its inhabitants. Yet his proceedings were viewed with satisfaction by the Greeks, when he restored the Æginetans, who had for a long time been banished from their island, and also refounded Melos and Skione, the Athenians being driven away and forced to give up the cities. By this time he learned that the people of Athens were nearly starved out, and consequently sailed to Peiræus and received the submission of the city, which was obliged to accept whatever terms of capitulation he chose to offer. I have indeed heard Lacedæmonians say that Lysander wrote to the Ephors, saying "Athens is taken;" and that they wrote to Lysander in answer, "To have taken it is enough." But this tale is merely invented for effect. The real decree of the Ephors ran as follows:--"This is the decision of the Lacedæmonian government. Throw down the walls of Peiræus and the Long Walls. Withdraw from all other cities and occupy your own land, and then you may have peace, if you wish for it, allowing likewise your exiles to return. With regard to the number of the ships, whatever be judged necessary by those on the spot, that do." The Athenians accepted these terms, by the advice of Theramenes the son of Hagnon: and on this occasion it is said that when he was asked by Kleomenes, one of the younger orators, how he dared to act and speak against what Themistokles had done, by giving up to the Lacedæmonians those walls which Themistokles had built in spite of them, he answered, "My boy, I am doing nothing contrary to Themistokles; for these same walls he built up to save his countrymen, and we will throw them down to save them. Indeed, if walls made a city prosperous, then ought Sparta, which has none, to be the most miserable of all."