Lysander   

hero's image; but their wishes were for Lysander's zealous and profitable
support of the interests of his friends and partisans, and they shed
tears, and were much disheartened when he sailed from them. He himself
made them yet more disaffected to Callicratidas; for what remained
of the money which had been given him to pay the navy, he sent back
again to Sardis, bidding them, if they would, apply to Callicratidas
himself, and see how he was able to maintain the soldiers. And, at
the last, sailing away, he declared to him that he delivered up the
fleet in possession and command of the sea. But Callicratidas, to
expose the emptiness of these high pretensions, said, "In that case,
leave Samos on the left hand, and sailing to Miletus, there deliver
up the ships to me; for if we are masters of the sea, we need not
fear sailing by our enemies in Samos." To which Lysander answering,
that not himself but he commanded the ships, sailed to Peloponnesus,
leaving Callicratidas in great perplexity. For neither had he brought
any money from home with him, nor could he endure to tax the towns
or force them, being in hardship enough. Therefore, the only course
that was to be taken was to go and beg at the doors of the king's
commanders, as Lysander had done; for which he was most unfit of any
man, being of a generous and great spirit, and one who thought it
more becoming for the Greeks to suffer any damage from one another
than to flatter and wait at the gates of barbarians, who, indeed,
had gold enough, but nothing else that was commendable. But being
compelled by necessity, he proceeded to Lydia, and went at once to
Cyrus's house, and sent in word that Callicratidas, the admiral, was
there to speak with him; one of those who kept the gates replied,
"Cyrus, O stranger, is not now at leisure, for he is drinking." To
which Callicratidas answered, most innocently, "Very well, I will
wait till he has done his draught." This time, therefore, they took
him for some clownish fellow, and he withdrew, merely laughed at by
the barbarians; but when, afterwards, he came a second time to the
gate, and was not admitted, he took it hardly and set off for Ephesus,
wishing a great many evils to those who first let themselves be insulted
over by these barbarians, and taught them to be insolent because of
their riches; and added vows to those who were present, that as soon
as ever he came back to Sparta, he would do all he could to reconcile
the Greeks, that they might be formidable to barbarians, and that
they should cease henceforth to need their aid against one another.
But Callicratidas, who entertained purposes worthy a Lacedaemonian,
and showed himself worthy to compete with the very best of Greece,
for his justice, his greatness of mind and courage, not long after,
having been beaten in a sea fight at Arginusae, died.
And now, affairs going backwards, the associates in the war sent an
embassy to Sparta, requiring Lysander to be their admiral, professing
themselves ready to undertake the business much more zealously if
he was commander; and Cyrus also sent to request the same thing. But
because they had a law which would not suffer any one to be admiral
twice, and wished, nevertheless, to gratify their allies, they gave
the title of admiral to one Aracus, and sent Lysander nominally as
vice-admiral, but, indeed, with full powers. So he came out, long
wished for by the greatest part of the chief persons and leaders in
the towns, who hoped to grow to greater power still by his means,
when the popular governments should be everywhere destroyed.
But to those who loved honest and noble behaviour in their commanders,
Lysander, compared with Callicratidas, seemed cunning and subtle,
managing most things in the war by deceit, extolling what was just
when it was profitable, and when it was not, using that which was
convenient, instead of that which, was good; and not judging truth
to be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both
according to interest. He would laugh at those who thought Hercules's
posterity ought not to use deceit in war: "For where the lion's skin
will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's." Such is the
conduct recorded of him in the business about Miletus when his friends
and connections, whom he had promised, raised to assist in suppressing