Lysander

Now some say that when he was besieging the city of Aphytae in Thrace, Ammon really stood by him in his sleep; wherefore he raised the siege, declaring that the god had commanded it, and ordered the Aphytaeans to sacrifice to Ammon, and was eager to make a journey into Libya and propitiate the god.

But the majority believed that he made the god a pretext, and really feared the ephors, and was impatient of the yoke at home, and unable to endure being under authority, and therefore longed to wander and travel about somewhat, like a horse which comes back from unrestricted pasturage in the meadows to his stall, and is put once more to his accustomed work. Ephorus, it is true, assigns another reason for this absence abroad, which I shall mention by and by.[*](Plut. Lys. 25.3)

After he had with great difficulty procured his release by the ephors, he set sail. But the kings, when he had gone abroad, became aware that by means of the societies which he had formed, he had the cities entirely in his power and was master of Hellas; they therefore took measures for deposing his friends everywhere and restoring the management of affairs to the people.

However, fresh disturbances broke out in connection with these changes, and first of all the Athenians from Phyle attacked the Thirty and overpowered them. Lysander therefore came home in haste, and persuaded the Lacedaemonians to aid the oligarchies and chastise the democracies. Accordingly, they sent to the Thirty, first of all, a hundred talents for the war, and Lysander himself as general.

But the kings were jealous of him, and feared to let him capture Athens a second time; they therefore determined that one of them should go out with the army. And Pausanias did go out ostensibly in behalf of the tyrants[*](That is, the Thirty in Athens.) against the people, but really to put a stop to the war, in order that Lysander might not again become master of Athens through the efforts of his friends. This object, then, he easily accomplished, and by reconciling the Athenians and putting a stop to their discord, he robbed Lysander of his ambitious hopes.

A short time afterwards, however, when the Athenians revolted again, he himself was censured for taking the curb of the oligarchy out of the mouth of the people, and letting them grow bold and insolent again; while Lysander won fresh repute as a man who exercised his command in downright fashion, not for the gratification of others, nor yet to win applause, but for the good of Sparta.