Lysander: The SPARTAN who conquered ATHENS

this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one website platform more about them later in this video Welcome Back to biographics I'm your host Cosmic horror madman Eric Malachite and today we're returning to ancient Greece to talk about Lysander with a script by the ever capable Radu Alexander as always be sure to check the links in the description and without further delay let's get to it the popian war from the second half of the 5th Century BC was one of the most important events in the ancient world as Sparta and Athens alongside all their allies fought fiercely to determine who would claim hegemony over the Greek world now a while back we already started taking a look at the war when we did our bio on bretas one of Sparta's mightiest generals and if you haven't seen it yet maybe check it out now it's hosted by my esteemed colleague Carl Smallwood however in that video we could not follow the war to its conclusion because neither did bretas who died about a third of the way through but now we are going to see it to the end because our subject for today is Lysander the Spartan General who defeated Athens Lysander was born Circa 4554 BC in Sparta we don't know much about Lysander before he became a Top Dog in the military and only the last decade or so of his life is properly documented the most solid ancient source we have on him is Plutarch who dedicated an entire chapter to Lysander in his magnum opus parallel lives however as a small reminder Plutarch lived almost 500 years after Lysander so it's not like they were drinking buddies or anything like that taking Plutarch at his word we can say that lysander's father was Aristo leitis a man who claimed to be part of the herac lineage AKA a descendant of Heracles or Hercules depending on you know whether you're Roman or Greek I guess although not part of the royal family in fact Lysander grew up in poverty although he bore it well and even when he had power and influence he did not exhibit A Love For Gold over to you Plutarch Lysander showed himself as much as any man conformable to the customs of his people of a manly Spirit too and Superior to every pleasure excepting only that which their Good Deeds bring to those who are successful and honored ambition then and the spirit of emulation were firmly implanted in him by his laconian training and no great fault should be found with his natural disposition on this account but he seems to have been naturally subservient to Men of power and influence beyond what was usual in a Spartan and content to endure an arrogant Authority for the sake of gaining his ends a trait which some hold to be no small part of political ability but what is most peculiar in him is that he was never mastered nor even corrupted Ed by money yet filled his country full of wealth importing as he did an abundance of gold and silver after the war with Athens although he kept not a single drma for himself that's pretty much all plutar gives us on Lysander before the latter became involved in the poonian war but before we get to that let's take a quick look at the state of the Greek world at that time the first part of the conflict sometimes referred to as the aramian war after the Spartan King aradus II ended in 421 BC C thanks mainly to the AFF forementioned brus following his victory at the Battle of mollis brus died in that battle but so did the opposing General Cleon since both Sparta and Athens lost their top military leaders they decided to call a truce even though everyone knew it wouldn't last long in the years that followed they continued fighting proxy wars through their Greek allies and Sparta claimed another victory over Athens at the Battle of manania then in 415 BC Athens decided to lead an expedition to Sicily and attack Syracuse which was an ally of the Spartans Sparta Corinth and a few others decided to intervene and the subsequent conflict was a total disaster for Athens which had its entire force either killed in battle or taken prisoner including three of its generals lomus nus and demosthenis following this Athenian defeat some of its allies decided that this was the time to abandon the ship and revolt against Athens like a shark that smelled blood in the water Sparta felt that this this was its golden opportunity to submit Athens once and for all so it declared war in Earnest but then something unexpected happen Athens started winning and at the Battle of cicus managed to destroy the entire Spartan Fleet this was in no small part thanks to an Athenian General named alabes who managed to keep his victory streak going and regain a lot of ground that Athens had lost during the war all of a sudden Sparta was on the back foot so it turned for help to its most recent Navar AKA it's fleet commander Lysander if you want to be able to crush your competitors like Lysander did Rome you're going to need an awesome website and the sponsor for today's video Squarespace has you covered Squarespace is the all-in-one 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the lover of H seos the half-brother of the Spartan King AIS II who himself would become king in 400 BC and rule for 40 years during the peak of Spartan hegemony let us know if you'd like a video on him in the future as well back to Lysander it seems that his first mission as a Spartan Commander would test his charms more than his military prowess because he was tasked was securing an alliance with the Persians specifically with Cyrus the younger son of King Darius II the Persians and Spartans weren't exactly on friendly terms it had only been 70 years since the Greco Persian wars in the infamous Battle of thermopol with the 300 Spartans led by King leonitis you know they made a movie about it this is spart but at this moment both sides dislike the Athenians more than each other the Spartans because well they were at war with them and the Persians because Athens posed a threat to their territories in Asia Minor particularly eonia that's why King Darius named Cyrus the satrip of Lydia and tasked him with doing everything he could to weaken the Athenians Lysander and Cyrus got on like a horse on fire because both men understood that a victory against Athens would serve their goals greatly Cyrus knew that his father wasn't long for this world and that he needed allies for an inevitable power struggle between him and his brother art of Xerxes II meanwhile Lysander coveted the power and Prestige that came with being the Spartan who finally crushed the Athenians Cyrus had already agreed to fund the Spartan Army but liander managed to win the heart of the young prince by convincing Cyrus to give everyone raises of one obal to the pay of each sailor quite correctly Lysander reason that this would cause a lot of desertions on the opposing side with many sailors simply following the money Athens tried to secure its own meeting with the Persians but Cyrus refused to see the Athenian envoys clearly he was placing all his eggs in lysander's basket now Athens went into a bit of panic mode and wanted to engage the Spartans as soon as possible but even though Lysander had amassed a large Fleet roughly 90 ships compared to alabes is 80 he was in no rush to fight he knew that he was hurting Athens more by simply staying put at Ephesus on Persia's dime while his enemy was forced to deal with decreasing funds and supplies desertions and low morale eventually alabai and had no choice but to leave his port at noan to tend to other matters he left the bulk of his Fleet behind but made a very bizarre Choice one which is considered unique in the history of Athenian Navy he left a man named Antiochus in charge who was a cabinetes AKA a meager Helmsman not a general or a captain but a petty officer to be fair to alabes he left very simple instructions do not attack Lysander so what did Antiochus do he attacked Lysander and he lost badly Not only was Antiochus killed in battle but he took 22 of his own ships with him by the time alabes had returned with reinforcements Lysander was already safely back in Ephesus with no desire to fight anymore two things happened after lysander's victory at noan alsab Andes was blamed for the defeat and lost his position as fleet commander and he went into Exile rather than returned to Athens but surprisingly enough Lysander lost his position as well in this case it wasn't a punishment but rather an end of term since according to Spartan law he could only serve as Navar for one year so he was replaced with a guy named citus and let's be honest this stung Lysander it became clear that Lysander didn't simply want Sparta to win he wanted Lysander to win kratus writing his coales to Victory didn't comfort him one bit so immediately Lysander undermined his successor by returning to Cyrus all the money he had left over thus forcing kic cratus to make his own arrangements with the Persian Prince and Cyrus stayed loyal to Lysander refusing to deal with kic cratus and forcing the new Navar to fight the Athenians without Persian Aid meanwhile Lysander went around to his allies in the aan drumming up support for himself all he needed was to wait for cicus to screw up which he did at the Battle of arosi in 406 BC it was a Grand s described by diodorus as the greatest naval battle in history of Greeks against Greeks each side deployed around 150 ships but the Athenians won the day in magnificent fashion destroying 77 Spartan ships while losing only a third of that kly cratus was killed in battle so hopefully I'll never have to say that confusing word again the Spartans offered a peace treaty but the Athenians were feeling cocky and turned it down although many Sparta were wary of giving Lysander power again they had no choice his allies demanded it Chief among them Cyrus the law said that Lysander couldn't be Navar again but even back then there were loopholes a guy named Aros was appointed as the new Navar while Lysander was his epistolas or second in command although everyone understood that Lysander was really the one calling the shots after a few months of rebuilding his Fleet Lysander set off on the war path attacking several cities and Islands allied with Athens Chief among them was lakus a strategically important town at the mouth of the helispot AKA dardel which could impact athens's grain shipments this forced their hand and prompted an immediate response and the two signs met in combat at the Battle of osami in 405 BC ancient sources gave differing accounts on how the fighting went down but they all had one Victor Lysander it seems that after 4 days of stalemates the Spartans managed to catch the Athenians unprepared and captured many of their ships UNM and after 27 years the popian war was over not officially yet but once Athens had lost its Fleet it was merely a formality Lysander laid Siege to Athens and with no grain shipments incoming starvation forced their surrender in March 404 BC Lysander did not forget his friends who put him in power he went around the aan to former allies of Athens and replaced their democratic governments with groups of 10 oligarchs known as decaris meanwhile Athens became ruled by 30 oligarchs loyal to Sparta known as the 30 tyrants but as they say pride comes before the fall and Lysander found out that he wasn't quite the ultimate conqueror he envisioned himself to be first the government of 30 tyrants that he installed in Athens only ruled for 8 months before being overthrown and much to lysander's chigrin the Spartan King pinius agreed to restore the Athenian democracy furthermore in 401 BC the Spartans lent their support to Cyrus who fought his brother to become the new king of the aam empire but they backed the wrong horse Cyrus was killed in battle erses became the new ruler and now held a deep grudge against Sparta and he wasn't the only one thieves and Corinth once two powerful Spartan allies were also on the outs with Sparta according to Plutarch Lysander actually encouraged war against thieves and he caught His Wish in 395 BC a new Greek Coalition which included Corinth thieves Athens and Argos went to war against Sparta and this time they were the ones being funded by the Persians the opening battle of this new war was fought at Hol arst and ended in a thean victory and the death of Lysander the Spartan general made the mistake of bringing his troops too closely to the city walls allowing the opposing Army to suddenly open the gate and overwhelm the Spartans in a blitz attack thus teaching Lysander a very important lesson be careful what you wish for well I hope you found this video entertaining and educational and if you did did be sure to do all that algorithmic jazz and keep it tuned here for more videos just like this I'm Eric Malachite and I'll see you next time space cowboy [Music]