Lysander

As regards the number of your ships, whatsoever shall be decided there, this do.[*](Cf. Xen. Hell. 2.2.20.) This edict was accepted by the Athenians, on the advice of Theramenes the son of Hagnon, who, they say, being asked at this time by Cleomenes, one of the young orators, if he dared to act and speak the contrary to Themistocles, by surrendering those walls to the Lacedaemonians which that statesman had erected in defiance of the Lacedaemonians, replied:

But I am doing nothing, young man, that is contrary to Themistocles; for the same walls which he erected for the safety of the citizens, we shall tear down for their safety. And if walls made cities prosperous, then Sparta must be in the worst plight of all, since she has none.

Lysander, accordingly, when he had taken possession of all the ships of the Athenians except twelve, and of their walls, on the sixteenth day of the month Munychion, the same on which they conquered the Barbarian in the sea-fight at Salamis, took measures at once to change their form of government.

And when the Athenians opposed him bitterly in this, he sent word to the people that he had caught the city violating the terms of its surrender; for its walls were still standing, although the days were past within which they should have been pulled down; he should therefore present their case anew for the decision of the authorities, since they had broken their agreements. And some say that in very truth a proposition to sell the Athenians into slavery was actually made in the assembly of the allies, and that at this time Erianthus the Theban also made a motion that the city be razed to the ground, and the country about it left for sheep to graze.

Afterwards, however, when the leaders were gathered at a banquet, and a certain Phocian sang the first chorus in the Electra of Euripides[*](Verses 167 f. (Kirchhoff).), which begins with:

1. 0 thou daughter of Agamemnon,
2. I am come, Electra, to thy rustic court,