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The Battle of Aegospotami was a naval
confrontation that took place in 405 and was the last major battle of the
Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander destroyed the
Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, since Athens could not import
grain or communicate with its empire without control of the sea.
Opponents: Sparta, Corinth and Peloponnesian League versus Athens and the
Delian League
Commanders and leaders:
Spartans - Lysander,
Aracus and Cleomedes of Samos
Athenians - Philocles,
Adeimantus,
son of Leucolophides and Conon
Strength:
Spartans - 170 ships
Athenians - 180 ships
Casualties and losses:
Spartans - Minimal
Athenians - 160 ships, 3,000 sailors executed
Prelude:
Lysander's campaigns In 405 , following the severe Spartan defeat at the Battle
of Arginusae, Lysander, the commander who had been responsible for the first
Spartan naval successes, was reinstated in command. Since the Spartan
constitution prohibited any commander from holding the office of navarch more
than once, he was appointed as a vice-admiral instead, with the clear
understanding that this was a mere legal fiction. One of Lysander's advantages
as a commander was his close relationship with the Persian prince Cyrus. Using
this connection, he quickly raised the money to begin rebuilding the Spartan
fleet. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his father Darius, he gave Lysander
the revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. With the resources of this
entire wealthy Persian province at his disposal, Lysander was able to quickly
reconstitute his fleet. He then set off on a series of campaigns throughout the
Aegean. He seized several Athenian-held cities, and attacked numerous islands.
He was unable to move north to the Hellespont, however, because of the threat
from the Athenian fleet at Samos. To divert the Athenians, Lysander struck
westward. Approaching quite near to Athens itself, he attacked Aegina and
Salamis, and even landed in Attica. The Athenian fleet set out in pursuit, but
Lysander sailed around them, reached the Hellespont, and established a base at
Abydos. From there, he seized the strategically important town of Lampsacus.
From here, the way was open to enter the Bosporus and close down the trade
routes from which Athens received the majority of her grain. If the Athenians
were to avoid starvation, Lysander had to be contained immediately.
Athenian response:
The Athenian fleet of 180 ships caught up with Lysander shortly after he had
taken Lampsacus, and established a base at Sestos. However, perhaps because of
the need to keep a close watch on Lysander, they set up camp on a beach much
nearer to Lampsacus. The location was less than ideal because of the lack of a
harbor and the difficulty of supplying the fleet, but proximity seems to have
been the primary concern in the minds of the Athenian generals. Every day, the
fleet sailed out to Lampsacus in battle formation, and waited outside the
harbor; when Lysander refused to emerge, they returned home.
Alcibiades's involvement:
At this time, the exiled Athenian leader Alcibiades was living in his ship's
castle near the Athenian camp. Coming down to the beach where the ships were
gathered, he made several suggestions to the generals. First, he proposed
relocating the fleet to the more secure base at Sestos. Second, he claimed that
several Thracian kings had offered to provide him with an army. If the generals
would offer him a share of the command, he claimed, he would use this army to
assist the Athenians. The generals, however, declined this offer and rejected
his advice. Spurned, Alcibiades returned to his home.
The battle:
Two accounts of the battle of Aegospotami exist. Diodorus Siculus relates that
the Athenian general in command on the fifth day at Sestos, Philocles, sailed
out with thirty ships, ordering the rest to follow him. Donald Kagan has argued
that the Athenian strategy, if this account is accurate, must have been to draw
the Peloponnesians into an attack on the small force so that the larger force
following could surprise them. In the event, the small force was immediately
defeated, and the remainder of the fleet was caught unprepared on the beach.
Xenophon, in contrast, relates that the entire Athenian fleet came out as usual
on the day of the battle, and Lysander remained in the harbor. When the
Athenians returned to their camp, the sailors scattered to forage for food;
Lysander's fleet then sailed across from Abydos and captured most of the ships
on the beach, with no sea fighting at all.
Whichever account of the battle itself is accurate, the result is clear. The
Athenian fleet was obliterated; only nine ships escaped, led by the general
Conon. Lysander captured
nearly all of the remainder, along with some three or four thousand Athenian
sailors. One of the escaped ships, the messenger ship Paralus, was dispatched
to inform Athens of the disaster. The rest, with Conon, sought refuge with
Evagoras, a friendly ruler in Cyprus. Some historians, ancient and modern,
suspect that the battle was lost as the result of treachery, perhaps on the
part of Adeimantus, who was the only Athenian commander the Spartans captured
during the battle who was not put to death, and perhaps with the treasonous
connivance of the oligarchical faction at Athens, who may have wanted their
city defeated in order to overthrow the democracy. But this all remains
speculative.
Aftermath:
Lysander and his victorious fleet sailed back to Lampsacus. Citing a previous
Athenian atrocity when the captured sailors of two ships were thrown overboard,
Lysander and his allies slaughtered Philocles and 3,000 Athenian prisoners,
sparing other Greek captives. Lysander's fleet then began moving slowly towards
Athens, capturing cities along the way. The Athenians, with no fleet, were
powerless to oppose him. Only at Samos did Lysander meet resistance; the
democratic government there, fiercely loyal to Athens, refused to give in, and
Lysander left a besieging force behind him. Xenophon reports that when the news
of the defeat reached Athens, ...a sound of wailing ran from Piraeus through
the long walls to the city, one man passing on the news to another; and during
that night no one slept, all mourning, not for the lost alone, but far more for
their own selves.
Fearing the retribution that the victorious Spartans might take on them, the
Athenians resolved to hold out from the siege, but their cause was hopeless.
Without a fleet to import grain from the Black Sea, and with the Spartan
occupation of Deceleia cutting off land transportation, the Athenians were
beginning to starve, and with people dying of hunger in the streets, the city
surrendered in March 404 . The walls of the city were demolished, and a
pro-Spartan oligarchic government was established (the so-called Thirty
Tyrants' regime). The Spartan victory at Aegospotami marked the end of 27 years
of war, placing Sparta in a position of complete dominance throughout the Greek
world and establishing a political order that would last for more than thirty
years.
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The battle of Aegospotami in 405 was a
crushing Athenian defeat that effectively ended the Great
Peloponnesian
War, leaving the city vulnerable to a siege and naval blockade. The
previous year had ended with a major Athenian victory at the battle of the
Arginusae
Islands, but in the aftermath of this battle six of the eight Athenian generals
had been executed for failing to rescue the survivors from twenty-five ships
sunk during the battle, and the remaining two had gone into exile. They were
replaced by Conon, Adeimantus and Philocles.
The Spartans also needed a new commander,
Callicratidas, the
admiral for 406, having been killed during the battle of the
Arginusae
Islands. At this time it was against Spartan custom to appoint someone to the
same post twice, so Lysander, the popular
commander of 405, was officially appointed as second in command to Aracus, but
in reality it was Lysander who commanded the fleet. The two sides spent part of
the year improving the quality of their fleets, but eventually Lysander decided
to move into the Hellespont, partly to try and regain control of a number of
cities lost in recent years and partly to try and block the Athenian food
supply from the Black Sea. His first success came at Lampsacus, on the Asian
shore, which was taken by storm. When the Athenians discovered that Lysander
had moved to the Hellespont, they followed with a fleet of 180 ships. They
sailed up the Hellespont, and took up a position at
Aegospotami, opposite
Lampsacus. On the next morning the Athenians put out to sea and formed up in
line of battle outside Lampsacus. Lysander refused to come out and fight, and
after some time the Athenians returned to their base on the beach at
Aegospotami. Lysander sent some of his fastest ships to follow the Athenians
and discover their routine. The same pattern was repeated on the next three
days. This worried Alcibiades, an Athenian
commander in exile for the second time, and he attempted to convince the
current Athenian generals to move up the coast to the city of Sestos, where
they would have a more secure position. On the fifth day Lysander made his
move. Our two sources disagree on the start of the disaster. In Diodorus
Siculus the Athenian commander for the day, Philocles, put to sea with thirty
triremes, and ordered the rest of his fleet to follow. Some deserters told
Lysander, and he decided to take advantage of the split Athenian fleet. The
entire Peloponnesian fleet put to sea, defeated Philocles and then attacked the
unprepared Athenian fleet. While Lysander was attempting to capture Athenian
ships by dragging them out to sea, a Peloponnesian army was landed on the
European shore and captured the Athenian fleet. In Xenophon Lysander took
advantage of Athenian complacency. The Athenians were forced to travel some way
to find food, and had got into the habit of dispersing from their ships at the
end of each day's sailing. On this day Lysander sent out his fast ships as
normal, but this time prepared the entire fleet for battle. When the scouts saw
that the Athenians were beginning to disperse they raised a shield as a symbol.
Lysander crossed the Hellespont and fell on the disorganised Athenians. At this
point our sources come back together. Conon and nine ships managed to escape
from the disaster, but the remaining 170 Athenian ships were all captured.
Conon realised that he had lost the war, and sailed into exile on Cyprus. In
the aftermath of this disaster the Athenian position crumbled. Byzantium and
Chalcedon were the first of a series of Athenian-held cities to surrender to
Lysander, and in each case he allowed the garrisons to return to Athens. News
of the defeat was carried to Athens on the state trireme 'Paralus'. With their
last fleet gone, the Athenians realised that they were about to be besieged by
land and sea, and that they might not expect much mercy if they surrendered.
The city was soon surrounded by two Peloponnesian armies and blockaded by
Lysander's fleet, and the siege of Athens, the final act of the Great
Peloponnesian War, began.
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