ATHENS' DOWNFALL, 407-404 B.C.
Sparta at last discovered a great admiral in Lysander. Coming to his naval base at Ephesus in the autumn of 408 B.c. he built up a large well-equipped fleet, assisted by the new satrap, Prince Cyrus, second son of the Persian king, who co-operated enthusias tically with the Spartan, placing Persia's illimitable resources and his own private purse at the latter's command. Persian vacillation thus ended, the only flaw in Sparta's naval organization was the rule forbidding the same man to hold the admiral's office in two consecutive years. In 407 B.C. Lysander resisted steadily all Alci biades' efforts to entice him out to battle. Then that weakness, shortage of. supplies, which hampered all Athenian operations in the "Ionian War," compelled Alcibiades to divide his fleet. He himself sailed north to plunder enemy coast towns, leaving in observation at Notium a squadron under one Antiochus, a good seaman and an old friend from boyhood, with strict orders not to offer battle. During his superior's absence at hostile Cyme Antiochus challenged Lysander insultingly to combat. The latter sallied out of harbour and routed him. Alcibiades returned and renewed the blockade of the foe, but the mischief was done. His personal enemies at Athens persuaded the people to dismiss him from his command. He withdrew quietly to a castle on the Hellespont, and a new board of generals next year replaced him.
Lysander, too, was superseded by Callicratidas, a brave and energetic officer. The latter, overcoming all hindrances placed in his way by Lysander and Cyrus, blockaded the Athenian Conon in Mitylene harbour. A large Athenian fleet, raised with desperate energy, sailed from Peiraeus to this general's succour. At the re sulting battle of Arginusae in August 406 B.C. the fleets engaged were the largest hitherto seen on both sides in the war, but the tactics were nearly as clumsy as in the days before Phormio. Callicratidas was defeated heavily and he himself was drowned. Again Sparta offered peace. Again Cleophon, in drunken madness, secured its rejection. The very victory was marred by a failure, due in part only to heavy weather, to rescue many hundred drown ing Athenian sailors from sinking or waterlogged ships. The generals were recalled to Athens. Six who obeyed were put on trial and, illegally condemned en bloc, were executed, Theramenes, whom they had tried to make their scapegoat, being largely re sponsible for their doom. By their removal he may have hoped
to achieve Alcibiades' recall even at the eleventh hour. In this he failed. The new generals of 405 B.C. were, with one exception, Alcibiades' political opponents.
These proceeding to Ionia, moved the entire fleet up to the open roadstead of Aegospotami in the Hellespont. Lysander lay opposite in security at Abydos. In vain Alcibiades rode down to warn his compatriots of their perilous position. Insults rewarded this, the last of his many efforts to save his city. By a clever ruse de guerre Lysander in Sept. 405 B.C. captured the whole of the opposing fleet without a blow and "in one single hour brought the longest of wars to an end." Only Conon and some 20 Athenian ships escaped. So Athens lost her fleet and, with it, the war, thanks to incompetence and political partisanship com bined. With slow deliberation Lysander sailed upon the city and blockaded Peiraeus. King Pausanias lay with his army outside the walls. After six terrible months of slow starvation Theramenes secured terms from Sparta tolerable compared with the utter destruction of the city demanded by Corinth and Thebes. On April 25, 404 B.C., Athens capitulated, and the Spartans marched in. Her long walls were pulled down to the merry sound of flutes. Her empire was dissolved. Samos, alone defiant, was taken. The oligarchy of the "Thirty Tyrants" was established at Athens, and Critias, its chief, presently secured the judicial murder of Theramenes in the city and the assassination of Alci biades at Phrygian Melissa. "Liberty returned to Hellas." The Peloponnesian War was ended.
With the war the greatest, if not the happiest days of Athens' history are ended. Her political pre-eminence passes away. In terest centres rather on Thebes and Macedon in the 4th, on Achaea and Sparta in the 3rd century. Hence it is that the Pelo ponnesian War enjoys such importance in world-history. Apart from this, it is the genius of Thucydides which has raised to the rank of a world-epic, almost of a world-tragedy, a struggle which has seemed to some little better than a petty quarrel of ancient days.