Lysander

Lysander, after settling these matters, sailed for Thrace himself, but what remained of the public moneys, together with all the gifts and crowns which he had himself received,—many people, as was natural, offering presents to a man who had the greatest power, and who was, in a manner, master of Hellas,—he sent off to Lacedaemon by Gylippus, who had held command in Sicily.[*](As Spartan general sent out to aid the Syracusans, he had turned the success of the besieging Athenians into disaster. See Plut. Nic. 18 ff.) But Gylippus, as it is said, ripped open the sacks at the bottom, and after taking a large amount of silver from each, sewed them up again, not knowing that there was a writing in each indicating the sum it held.

And when he came to Sparta, he hid what he had stolen under the tiles of his house, but delivered the sacks to the ephors, and showed the seals upon them. When, however, the ephors opened the sacks and counted the money, its amount did not agree with the written lists, and the thing perplexed them, until a servant of Gylippus made the truth known to them by his riddle of many owls sleeping under the tiling. For most of the coinage of the time, as it seems, bore the effigy of an owl, owing to the supremacy of Athens.