The three thousand prisoners taken in this battle having been condemned to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who had caused all the prisoners taken in two galleys, the one of Andros, the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to disable them from handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to serve at the oar. Lysander, therefore, caused him to be brought forth, and asked him what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he was in, made answer: “Accuse not people of crimes, who have no judges; but, as you are victors, use your right, and do by us as we had done by you, if we had conquered.” At the same instant he went into a bath, put on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost to the execution. All the prisoners were put to the sword, except Adimantus,[59] who had opposed the decree.e
THE FALL OF ATHENS
When he had arranged matters at Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against Byzantium and Chalcedon; where the inhabitants admitted him, after sending away the Athenian garrison under treaty. The party that had betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades, at that time fled to Pontus, and afterwards to Athens, and became citizens there. The garrison troops of the Athenians, and whatever other Athenians he found anywhere, Lysander sent to Athens, giving them safe conduct so long as they were sailing to that place alone, and to no other; knowing that the more people were collected in the city and Piræus, the sooner there would be a want of provisions. And now, leaving Sthenelaus as Lacedæmonian harmost of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he himself sailed away to Lampsacus, and refitted his ships.
Greek Vase
At Athens, on the arrival of the Paralus in the night, the tale of their disaster was told; and the lamentation spread from the Piræus up the Long Walls into the city, one man passing on the tidings to another: so that no one went to bed that night, not only through their mourning for the dead, but much more still because they thought they should themselves suffer the same things as they had done to the Melians (who were a colony from Lacedæmon), when they had reduced them by blockade, and to the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many others of the Greeks. But the next day they convened an assembly, at which it was resolved to block up the harbours, with the exception of one, and to put the walls in order, and mount guard upon them, and in every other way to prepare the city for a siege.
Lysander, having come with two hundred ships from the Hellespont to Lesbos, regulated both the other cities in the island, and especially Mytilene; while he sent Eteonicus with ten ships to the Athenian possessions Thraceward, who brought over all the places there to the Lacedæmonians. And all the rest of Greece too revolted from Athens immediately after the sea-fight, except the Samians; they massacred the notables amongst them, and kept possession of the city. Afterwards Lysander sent word to Agis at Decelea, and to Lacedæmon, that he was sailing up with two hundred ships. And the Lacedæmonians went out to meet him en masse, and all the rest of the Peloponnesians but the Argives, at the command of the other Spartan king, Pausanias. When they were all combined, he took them to the city and encamped before it, in the academy—the gymnasium so called. Then Lysander went to Ægina, and restored the city to the Æginetans, having collected as many of them as he could; and so likewise to the Melians, and as many others as had been deprived of their city. After this, having ravaged Salamis, he came to anchor off the Piræus, with a hundred and fifty ships, and prevented all vessels from sailing into it.
The Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, were at a loss what to do, as they had neither ships, nor allies, nor provisions; and they thought nothing could save them from suffering what they had done to others, not in self-defence, but wantonly wronging men of smaller states, on no other single ground, but their being allies of the Lacedæmonians. Wherefore they restored to their privileges those who had been degraded from them, and held out resolutely; and though many in the city were dying of starvation, they spoke not a word of coming to terms. But when their corn had now entirely failed, they sent ambassadors to Agis, wishing to become allies of the Lacedæmonians, while they retained their walls and the Piræus, and on these conditions to make treaty with them. He told them to go to Lacedæmon, as he had himself no power to treat. When the ambassadors delivered this message to the Athenians, they sent them to Lacedæmon. But when they were at Sellasia, near the Laconian territory, and the ephors heard what they proposed, which was the same as they had done to Agis, they bade them return from that very spot, and if they had any wish at all for peace, to come back after taking better advice.
When the ambassadors came home, and reported this in the city, dejection fell on all; for they thought they would be sold into slavery; and that even while they were sending another embassy, many would die of famine. But with respect to the demolition of their walls, no one would advise it: for Archestratus had been thrown into prison for saying in the council, that it was best to make peace with the Lacedæmonians on the terms they offered, which were, that they should demolish ten furlongs of each of the Long Walls; and a decree was then made, that it should not be allowed to advise on that subject. Such being the case, Theramenes said in the assembly, that if they would send him to Lysander, he would come back with full knowledge whether it was from a wish to enslave the city that the Lacedæmonians held out on the subject of the walls, or to have a guarantee for their good faith. Having been sent, he remained with Lysander three months and more, watching to see when the Athenians, from the failure of all their food, would agree to what any one might say. On his return in the fourth month, he reported in the assembly that Lysander had detained him all that time, and then told him to go to Lacedæmon. After this he was chosen ambassador to Lacedæmon with full powers, together with nine others. Now Lysander had sent, along with some others who were Lacedæmonians, Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, to carry word to the ephors that he had answered Theramenes, that it was they who were empowered to decide on the question of peace or war. So when Theramenes and the rest of the ambassadors were at Sellasia, being asked on what terms they had come, they replied that they had full powers to treat for peace; the ephors then ordered them to be called onward. Upon their arrival they convened an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans contended most strenuously, though many others of the Greeks did so too, that they should conclude no treaty with the Athenians, but make away with them.
The Lacedæmonians, however, said they would not reduce to bondage a state which had done great good at the time of the greatest dangers that had ever befallen Greece; but they offered to make peace, on condition of their demolishing the Long Walls and Piræus, giving up all their ships but twelve, restoring their exiles, having the same friends and foes as the Lacedæmonians, and following, both by land and by sea, wherever they might lead. Theramenes and his fellow-ambassadors carried back these terms to Athens. On their entering the city, a great multitude poured round them, afraid of their having returned unsuccessfuclass="underline" for it was no longer possible to delay, owing to the great numbers who were dying of famine. The next day the ambassadors reported on what conditions the Lacedæmonians were willing to make peace; and Theramenes, as their spokesman, said that they should obey the Lacedæmonians, and destroy the walls. When some had opposed him, but far more agreed with him, it was resolved to accept the peace. Subsequently Lysander sailed into the Piræus, and the exiles were restored; and they dug down the walls with much glee, to the music of women playing the flute, considering that day to be the beginning of liberty to Greece.