a man of such great power, who was in a manner the
lord of Greece), he sends to Lacedæmon by Gylippus,
who had commanded formerly in Sicily. But he, it is
reported, opened the seams of the sacks at the bottom,
took a considerable amount of money out of every one
of them, and sewed them up again, not knowing there
was a writing in every one stating how much there was.
And coming to Sparta, what he had thus stolen away
he hid under the tiles of his house, and delivered up
the sacks to the Ephors, and showed the seals were upon
them. But afterwards, on their opening the sacks and
counting it, the quantities differed from what the wri-
tings stated; and the Ephors being in perplexity,
Gylippus's servant tells them in a riddle, that under the
tiles lay many owls*; for it seems the greatest part of
the
money then current bore the Athenian stamp of the

17

Attic drachma. From the British Museum. Size of the original: silver; value nearly 94d.

Gylippus, having committed so foul and base a deed, after such great and distinguished exploits before, removed himself from Lacedæmon. But the wisest of the Spartans, very much on account of this occurrence, dreading the influence of money, as being what had

*Or perhaps even more obscurely, many owls roosted in Ceramicus; the well-known Athenian suburb being Ceramicus, and céramus the Greek for tiling.

corrupted some of the greatest citizens, exclaimed against Lysander's conduct, and protested to the Ephors, that all the silver and gold should be sent away, as mere "alien mischiefs." These consulted about it; and Theopompus says it was Sciraphidas, but Ephorus that it was Phlogidas, who declared they ought not to receive any gold or silver money into the city; but to use their own country coin, which was iron, and was first of all dipped in vinegar when it was red hot, that it might not be worked up anew, but because of the dipping might be hard and unpliable. It was also of course very heavy and troublesome to carry, and a great deal of it in quantity and weight was but a little in value. And perhaps all the old money was so, coin consisting of iron, or in some countries, copper skewers, whence it comes that we still find a great number of small pieces of money retain the name of obolus*, and the drachma is six of these, because so much may be grasped in one's hand. But Lysander's friends being against it and endeavouring to keep the money in the city, it was resolved to bring in this sort of money to be used publicly, enacting at the same time, that if any one was found in possession of any privately, he should be put to death, as if Lycurgus had feared the coin and not the covetousness resulting from it, which they did not repress by letting no private man keep any, so much as

* Obelus, a small spit or skewer, is probably the same word with obolus, the Greek penny: drachma, the six-obol piece, a handful, comes from drassomai, to grasp in the hand; thus in Homer, dragma, of the stalks of corn in the reaper's hands: As when reapers, facing each other, cut a swathe in a rich man's field of wheat or of barley, and the handfuls fall thickly;" and again of the gleaners, in the shield of Achilles.

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they encouraged it by allowing the state to possess it; attaching thereby a sort of dignity to it over and above its ordinary utility. Neither was it possible, that what they saw was so much esteemed publicly, they should privately despise as unprofitable; and that every one should think that a thing could be worth nothing for his personal use, which was so extremely valued and desired for the use of the state. And moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and slips of individuals are in infecting the city at large. For it is probable that the parts will be rather corrupted by the whole if that grows bad; while the vices which flow from a part into the whole, find many correctives and remedies from these which remain sound. Terror and the law were now to keep guard over the citizens' houses, to prevent any money entering into them; but their minds could no longer be expected to remain superior to the desire of it, when wealth in general was thus set up to be striven after, as a high and noble object. On this point, however, we have given our censure of the Lacedæmonians in one of our other writings.

Lysander erected out of the spoils brazen statues at Delphi of himself and of every one of the captains of the fleet*, as also figures of the golden stars of Castor

* Pausanias gives a long list of their names, as he saw them in the temple; among them was Erianthus, the Boeotian, mentioned above in Chap. 15. The figures were placed behind that of Lysander, who was represented as receiving a crown from Neptune. There were also figures of Hermon, who steered his ship, and of Abas his diviner.

and Pollux, which were lost before the battle at Leuctra. In the treasury of Brasidas and the Acanthians there was a trireme, made of gold and ivory, of two cubits, which Cyrus sent Lysander in honour of his victory. But Anaxandrides of Delphi writes that there was also a deposit of Lysander's, a talent of silver and fifty-two minas, besides eleven staters; a statement not consistent with the generally received account of his poverty. And at that time Lysander, being in fact of greater power than any Greek before, was yet thought to show a pride and to affect a superiority greater even than his power warranted. He was, as Duris relates, the first among the Greeks, to whom the cities reared altars as to a god, and sacrificed; to him were songs of triumph first sung, the beginning of one of which still remains recorded:

Great Greece's general from spacious Sparta we
Will celebrate with songs of victory.

And the Samians decreed that their solemnities of Juno should be called the Lysandria. And out of the poets he had Chœrilus always with him, to extol his achievements in verse; and to Antilochus, who had made some verses of no great merit, in his commendation, being pleased with them, he gave a hat full of silver. And when Antimachus of Colophon and one Niceratus of Heraclea competed with each other in a poem on the deeds of Lysander, he, acting as judge, gave the garland to Niceratus; at which Antimachus in vexation destroyed his poem; but Plato, being then a young man, and admiring Antimachus for his poetry, consoled him

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for his defeat by telling him that it is the ignorant who are the sufferers by ignorance, as truly as the blind by want of sight. And when Aristonus the musician, who had been a conqueror six times at the Pythian games, told him as a piece of flattery, that if he were successful again, he would proclaim himself in the name of Lysander; "that is," he answered, as his slave."

This ambitious temper was indeed only burdensome to the highest personages and to his equals; but through having so many people devoted to serve him, an extreme haughtiness and contemptuousness grew up, together with ambition, in his character. He observed none of moderation befitting a private man, in rewarding or in punishing; the recompense of his friends and associates was absolute power over cities and the irresponsible authority of tyrants, and the only satisfaction of his wrath was the death of his enemy; banishment would not do. As for example, at a later period, fearing lest the popular leaders of the Milesians* should fly, and desiring also to discover those who lay hid, he swore he would do them no harm, and on their believing him and coming forth, he delivered them up to the oligarchical leaders to be slain, being in all no less than eight hundred. And indeed the slaughter in general of those of the popular party in the towns exceeded all computation; as he did not kill only for offences against

*For Milesians read, perhaps, Thasians. It is not likely that Plutarch is repeating here, in a different form, the fact which he narrated, probably in the proper place as regards time, before the battle of Egos-potami, in Chap. 8; and a similar account to this is given elsewhere, as what happened, after Ægos-potami, at Thasos.