Lysander
Lysandros
Son of Aristocritus, of one of the impoverished Spartiate families called the *mothakes* (citizens raised under the patronage of a wealthier house). Navarch in 407 and again in 405, the second appointment exceptional under Spartan custom — the office was held to a single year, but the position was renewed for him under the cover of *epistoleus* (vice-admiral) to the formal navarch Aracus. Built the second Spartan fleet in Ionia 407–406 with the gold of Cyrus the Younger, satrap of Lydia and brother of Artaxerxes II (the relationship that Xenophon *Anabasis* 1 will pick up six years later). Won at Notion in 406 against Alcibiades's helmsman Antiochus (Plut. *Lys.* 5), removing Alcibiades from Athenian command. Won the decisive victory at Aegospotami in late August 405, catching the Athenian fleet on the beach without preparation (Plut. *Lys.* 9–11; Xen. *Hell.* 2.1.21–32). Took the Athenian surrender in April 404, demolished the Long Walls and the Piraeus walls 'to the music of flute girls' (Plut. *Lys.* 15.4). Imposed across the Greek cities of the empire the decarchies (boards of ten) staffed by his political clients, with a Spartan harmost over each — 'Neither did he make choice of rulers by birth or by wealth, but bestowed the offices on his own friends and partisans' (Plut. *Lys.* 13). Killed at the battle of Haliartus in 395 leading the Spartan invasion of Boeotia at the start of the Corinthian War — the system of Spartan empire he had built collapsed within the decade after his death.