and others he forced to go on board their gallies; but all his endeavours and emotions were ineffectual, the soldiers being dispersed on all sides. For they were no sooner come on shore, than some ran to the sutlers, some to walk in the country, some to sleep in their tents, and others had begun to dress their suppers. This proceeded from the want of vigilance and experience in their generals, who, not suspecting the least danger, indulged themselves in taking their repose, and gave their soldiers the same liberty.

The enemy had already fallen on with loud cries and great noise of their oars, when Conon, disengaging himself with nine gallies, of which number was the sacred ship called the Paralian, stood away for Cyprus, where he took refuge with Evagoras. The Peloponnesians, falling upon the rest of the fleet took immediately the gallies which were empty, and disabled and destroyed such as began to fill with men. The soldiers, who ran without order or arms to their relief, were either killed in the endeavour to get on board, or flying on shore were cut to pieces by the enemy, who landed in pursuit of them. Lysander took 3000 prisoners, with all the generals and the whole fleet. After having plundered the camp, and fastened the enemy's gallies to the sterns of his own, he returned to Lampsacus, amidst the sound of flutes and songs of triumph. He had the glory of achieving one of the greatest military exploits recorded in history, with little or no loss, and of terminating a war in the small space of an hour, which had already lasted seven-and-twenty years, and which perhaps, without him, would have been of much longer continuance. Lysander immediately sent dispatches with this agreeable news to Sparta.

The 3000 prisoners, taken in this battle, having been condemned to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who had caused all the prisoners taken in two gallies, the one of Andros, the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to disable them for handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to serve at the oar. Lysander therefore caused him to be brought forth, and ask him, what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he was in, made answer, "Accuse not people of << crimes who have no judges, but as you are victor, use your right, and do by us as we would have done by you, if we "had conquered.' At the same instant he went into a bath, put on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost

to the execution. All the prisoners were put to the sword, except Adimantus, who had opposed the decree.

After this expedition, Lysander went with his fleet to all the maritime cities, and gave orders for all Athenians in them to withdraw as soon as possible to Athens, without permitting them to take any other route; declaring, that after a certain time fixed, all such should be punished with death, as should be found out of Athens. This he did as an able politician, to reduce the city by famine the more easily, and to render it incapable of sustaining a long siege. He afterwards busied himself in subverting democracy, and all other forms of government throughout the cities; leaving in each of them a Lacedæmonian governor, called harmostes, and 10 archons or magistrates, whom he chose out the societies he had established in them. He thereby in some measure secured to himself universal authority, and a kind of sovereignty over all Greece; putting none into power but such as were entirely devoted to his service.

SECT. VII.

Athens, besieged by Lysander, capitulates, and surrenders. Lysander changes the form of government, and establishes thirty commanders in it. He sends Gylippus before him to Sparta with all the gold and silver taken from the enemy. Decree of Sparta upon the use to be made of it. The Peloponnesian war ends in this manner. Death of Darius Nothus.

" When the news of the entire defeat of the army came to Athens by a ship, which arrived in the night at the Piræus, the city was in universal consternation. Nothing was heard but cries of sorrow and despair in every part of it. They imagined the enemy already at their gates. They represented to themselves the miseries of a long siege, a cruel famine, the ruin and burning of their city, the insolence of a proud victor, and the shameful slavery they were upon the point of experiencing, more afflicting and insupportable to them than the most severe punishments and death itself. The next day the assembly was summoned, wherein it was resolved to shut up all the ports, one only excepted; to repair the breaches in the walls; and mount guard to prepare against a siege.

In fact Agis and Pausanias, the two kings of Sparta, advanced towards Athens with all their troops. Lysander soon after arrived at the Pirau's with 150 sail, and prevented all ships from going in or coming out. The Athenians, besieged

a A. M. 3600 Ant. J. C. 404. Xenoph. Hellen. 1. ii. p. 458-462. Plut. in Lyrand. p. 440, 441.

by sea and land, without provisions, ships, hope of relief, or any resource, reinstated all persons who had been attainted by any decree, without, however, speaking of a capitulation, though many already died of the famine. But when their corn was entirely consumed, they sent deputies to Agis, to propose a treaty with Sparta, upon condition of abandoning all their possessions, the city and port only excepted. He referred the deputies to Lacedæmon, as not being empowered to treat with them. When they arrived at Selasia, upon the frontier of Sparta, and had made known their commission to the Ephori, they were ordered to retire, and to come with other proposals if they expected peace. The Ephori had demanded, that 1200 paces of the wall on each side of the Piræus should be demolished: but an Athenian, for venturing to advise a compliance, was sent to prison, and prohibition made against proposing any thing of that kind for the future.

In this deplorable condition Theramenes declared in the assembly, that if he were sent to Lysander, he would know, whether the proposal made by the Lacedæmonians for dismantling the city, was intended to facilitate its ruin, or to prevent a revolt. The Athenians having deputed him accordingly, he was more than three months absent; no doubt with the view of reducing them by famine to accept any conditions that should be offered. On his return he told them, that Lysander had detained him all that time, and that at last he had been given to understand, that he might apply to the Ephori. He was therefore sent back with nine others to Sparta with full powers to conclude a treaty. When they arrived there, the Ephori gave them audience in the general assembly, where the Corinthians and several other allies, especially the Thebans, insisted that it was absolutely neeessary to destroy the city without hearkening any farther to a treaty. But the Lacedæmonians, preferring the glory and safety of Greece to their own grandeur, made answer, that they would never be reproached with having destroyed a city that had rendered such great services to all Greece ; the remembrance of which ought to have much greater weight with the allies, than the resentment of private injuries received from it. The peace was therefore concluded upon these conditions: "That the fortifications of the Piræus, with the long wall that joined that port to the city, "should be demolished; that the Athenians should deliver up all their gallies, 12 only excepted; that they should "abandon all the cities they had seized, and content them"seives with their own lands and country; that they should "recall their exiles, and make a league offensive and defen

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"sive with the Lacedæmonians, under whom they should "march wherever they thought fit to lead them."

The deputies on their return were surrounded with an innumerable throng of people, who apprehended that nothing had been concluded, for they were not able to hold out any longer, such multitudes dying every day of famine. The next day they reported the success of their negociation; the treaty was ratified, notwithstanding the opposition of some persons; and Lysander, followed by the exiles, entered the port. It was upon the very day that the Athenians had formerly gained the famous naval battle of Salamis. He caused the walls to be demolished to the sound of flutes and trumpets, and with all the exterior marks of triumph and rejoicing, as if all Greece had that day regained its liberty. Thus ended the Peloponnesian war, after having continued during the space of 27 years.

Lysander, without giving the Athenians time to look about them, changed the form of their government entirely, established 30 archons, or rather tyrants, over the city, put a strong garrison into the citadel, and left the Spartan Callibius harmostes, or governor. Agis dismissed his troops. Lysander, before he disbanded his, advanced against Samos, which he pressed so warmly, that it was at last obliged to capitulate. After having established its ancient inhabitants in it, he proposed to return to Sparta with the Lacedæmonian gallies, those of the Piræus, and the beaks of those he had taken.

He had sent Gylippus, who had commanded the army in Sicily, before him, to carry the money and spoils, which were the fruit of his glorious campaigns, to Lacedæmon. The money, without reckoning the innumerable crowns of gold, given him by the cities, amounted to 1500 talents, that is to say, 1,500,000 crowns". Gylippus, who carried this considerable sum, could not resist the temptation of converting some part of it to his own use. The bags were sealed up carefully, and did not seem to leave any room for theft. He unsewed them at the bottom; and after having taken out of each of them what money he thought fit, to the amount of 300 talents, he sewed them up again very neatly, and thought himself perfectly safe. But when he arrived at Sparta, the accounts, which had been put up in each bag, discovered him. To avoid punishment, he banished himself from his country, carrying along with him in all places the disgrace of having sullied, by so base and sordid an avarice, the glory of all his great actions.

From this unhappy example, the wisest and most judicious of the Spartans, apprehending the all-powerful effects of

a About / 337,000 sterling.

money, which enslaved not only the vulgar, but even the greatest of men, extremely blamed Lysander for having acted so contradictorily to the fundamental laws of Sparta, and warmly represented to the Ephori, how incumbent it was upon them to a banish all that gold and silver from the republic, and to lay the heaviest of curses and imprecations upon it, as the fatal bane of all other states, introduced only to corrupt the wholesome constitution of the Spartan government, which had supported itself for so many ages with vigour and prosperity. The Ephori immediately passed a decree to proscribe that money, and ordained that none should be current, except the usual pieces of iron. But Lysander's friends opposed this decree, and sparing no pains to retain the gold and silver in Sparta, the affair was referred to farther deliberation. There naturally seemed only two plans to be proposed; which were, either to make the gold and silver coin current, or to cry them down and prohibit them absolutely. The men of address and policy found out a third expedient, which, in their opinion, reconciled both the others with great success: this was wisely to choose the mean betwixt the vicious extremes of too much rigour and too much remissness. It was therefore resolved, that the new coin of gold and silver should be solely employed by the public treasury; that it should only pass in the occasions and uses of the state; and that every private person, in whose possession it should be found, should be immediately put to death.

A strange expedient, says Plutarch! As if Lycurgus had feared the specie of gold and silver, and not the avarice they occasion; an avarice, less to be extinguished by prohibiting individuals from possessing it, than inflamed by permitting the state to amass and make use of it for the service of the public. For it was impossible, whilst that money was in honour and esteem with the public, that it should be despised in private as useless, and that people should look upon that as of no value in their domestic affairs, which the state prized, and was so anxious to have for its occasions; bad usages, authorized by the practice and example of the public, being a thousand times more dangerous to individuals than the vices of individuals to the public. The Lacedæmonians therefore, continues Plutarch, in punishing those with death who should make use of the new money in private, were so blind and imprudent as to imagine, that the placing of the law, and the terror of punishment as a guard at the door, was sufficient to prevent gold and silver from entering the house: they left the hearts of their citizens open to the desire and admiration of riches, and introduced themselves a violent α 'Αποδιοπομπεῖσθαι πᾶν τὸ ἀργύριον καὶ τὸ χρυσίον, ὥσπερ κῆρας ἐπαγω τιμές.