Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/877

LYSANDER. Sparta, but again repaired to Asia Minor, where he was almost adored by the oligarchical clubs he had established in the Greek cities. But his excessive power, and the homage that was paid to him everywhere, awakened the envy and jealousy even of the kings and ephors in Sparta. When, therefore, Pharnabazus sent ambassadors to Sparta to complain of Lysander having plundered his territory, the ephors recalled him to Sparta, and at the same time, to make him feel their power, they put to death his friend and colleague Thorax, for having money in his private possession. Alarmed at these indications of hostility, Lysander hastened to Pharnabazus and prayed him to give him an exculpatory letter for the Spartan government ; but the Persian satrap, while he promised compliance with his request, craftily substituted another letter in place of the one he had promised, in which he repeated his former complaints. This letter, which Lysander carried himself to Sparta, placed him in no small difficulty and danger. (Plut. Lys. 20 ; Polyaen. .vii. 19.) Fearing to be brought to trial, and anxious to escape from Sparta, he obtained, with great trouble, permission from the ephors to visit the temple of Zeus Amnion, in Libya, in order to fulfil a vow which he pre- tended to have made before his battles. But the attempts of Thrasybulus and of the democratical party to overthrow the oligarchical government which had been established at Athens, soon re- called him to Sparta, where he seems to have again acquired his wonted influence ; for, although the government refused to send an army to the support of the oligarchs, they appointed Lysander harmost, allowed him to raise troops, advanced a hundred talents from the treasury, and nominated his brother Libys admiral, with a fleet of forty ships. As soon, however, as Lysander had left Sparta, the party opposed to him again obtained the upper hand ; and the king, Pausanias, who was his bit- terest enemy, concerted measures, in conjunction with three of the ephors, to thwart his enterprise, and deprive him of the glory which he would ac- quire from a second conquest of Athens. Under pretence of raising an army to co-operate with Lysander, Pausanias marched into Attica ; but soon after his arrival at the Peiraeeus the Spartan king made terms with Thrasybulus and his party, and thus prevented Lysander from again establishing the oligarchical government. (Plut. Lys. 21 ; Xen. Hell. ii. 4. § 28, &c.; Lys. c. Eratosth. p. 106.) From this time Lysander continued in obscurity for some years. He is again mentioned on the death of Agis IL in b. c. 3.98, when he exerted himself to secure the succession for Agesilaus, the brother of Agis, in opposition to Leotychides, the reputed son of the latter. [Leotychides, No. 3.] In these efforts he was successful, but he did not receive from Agesilaus the gratitude he had ex- pected. He was one of the members of the council, thirty in number, which was appointed to accom- pany the new king in his expedition into Asia in B- c. 396. Lysander had fondly hoped to renew his intrigues among the Asiatic Greeks, and to re- gain his former power and consequence in that country ; but he was bitterly disappointed : Agesi- laus purposely thwarted all his designs, and re- fused all the favours which he asked ; and Lysander was so deeply mortified that he begged for an ap- pointment to some other place. Agesilaus sent LYSANDRA. 8PH him to the Hellespont, where he did the Greek cause some service, by inducing Spithridates, a Per- sian of high rank, to revolt from Pharnabazus, and join the Spartans. (Plut. Lys. 23, 24, Agesil. 7, 8 ; Xen. Hell iii. 4. § 7, &c.) Lysander soon afterwards returned to Sparta, highly incensed against Agesilaus and the kingly form of government in general, and firmly resolved to bring about the change he had long meditated in the Spartan constitution, by abolishing hereditary royalty, and throwing the throne open to all the Heracleidae, or, according to some accounts, to all the Spartans without exception. He is said to have got Cleon of Halicarnassus, to compose an oration in recommendation of the measure, which he intended to deliver himself ; and he is further stated to have attempted to obtain the sanction of the gods in favour of his scheme, and to have tried in succession the oracles of Delphi, Dodona, and Zeus Amnion, but without success. Plutarch in- deed relates, on the authority of Ephorus, a still more extraordinary expedient to which he had recourse, but which also failed. (Plut. Lys. 24, &c., Ages. 8 ; Died. xiv. 13 ; Cic. de Divin. i. 43.) Of the history of these events, however, we know but little. (Comp. Thirlwairs Greece, vol. iv. Appendix 4, " On Lysander's Revolutionary Pro- jects.") He does not seem to have ventured upon any overt act, and his enterprise was cut short by his death in the following year. On the breaking out of the Boeotian war in B. c. 395, Lysander was placed at the head of one army, and the king Pausanias at the head of another. The two armies were to meet in the neighbourhood of Haliartus ; but as Pausanias did not arrive there at the time that had been agreed upon, Lysander marched against the town, and perished in battle under the walls, B. c. 395. His body was delivered up to Pausanias, who arrived there a few hours after his death, and was buried in the territory of Panopeus in Phocis, on the road from Delphi to Chaeroneia, where his monument was still to be seen in the time of Plutarch. Lysander died poor, which proves that his ambition was not disgraced by the love of money, which sullied the character of Gy- lippus and so many of his contemporaries. It is related that after his death Agesilaus discovered in the house of Lysander the speech of Cleon, which has been mentioned above, and would have pub- lished it, had he not been persuaded to suppress such a dangerous document. (Plut. Lys. 27, &c. ; Xen. Hell. iii. 5. § 6, &c. ; Diod. xiv. 81 ; Paus. iii. 5. § 3, ix. 32. § 5.) LYSANDRA ( AuVai/Spa), daughter of Ptolemy Soter and Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater. She was married first to Alexander, the son of Cassander, king of Macedonia, and after his death to Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus. (Dexippus, ap. Syncell. p. 265 ; Euseb. Arm. p. 155; Paus. i. 9. '§ 6; Plut. Devietr. 31.) By this second marriage (which took place, accord- ing to Pausanias, after the return of Lysimachus from his expedition against the Getae, B.C. 291) she had several children, with whom she fled to Asia after the murder of her husband, at the in- stigation of Arsinoe [Agathocles], and besought assistance from Seleucus. The latter in consequence marched agsiinst Lysimachus, who was defeated and slain in battle b. c. 281. From an expression of Pausanias, it appears that liysandra must at this time have accompanied Seleucus, and was