Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/206

 184 HISTORY OF Gl EECE. of caused and agents, was common to a very large proportion of the cities throughout Greece. The Lacedaemonian admiral Ly sander, during his first year of naval command, had organised in most of the allied cites factious combinations of some of the principal citizens, corresponding with himself personally ; by whose efforts in their respective cities he was enabled to prosecute the war vigorously, and whom he repaid, partly by seconding as much as he could their injustices in their respective cities, partly by promis- ing to strengthen their hands still farther as soon as victory should be made sure. 1 This policy, while it served as a stimulus against the common enemy, contributed still more directly to aggrandize Lysander himself ; creating for him an ascendency of his own, and imposing upon him personal obligations towards adherents, apart from what was required by the interests of Sparta. The victory of .ZEgospotami, complete and decisive beyond all expectations either of friend or foe, enabled him to discharge these obligations with interest. All Greece at once made submission to the Lacedaemonians, 2 except Athens and Samos, and these two only held out a few months. It was now the first business of the victorious commander to remunerate his adherents, and to take permanent security for Spartan dominion as well as for his own. In the greater number of cities, he established an oligarchy of ten citizens, or a dekarchy, 3 composed of his own partisans ; while he at the same time planted in each a Lacedaemonian harmost or governor, with a garrison to uphold the new oligarchy. The dekar- chy often Lysandrian partisans, with the Lacedaemonian harmost to sustain them, became the general scheme of Hellenic government throughout the JEgean, from Euboea to the Thracian coast-towns, and from Myletus to Byzantium. Lysander sailed round in per- son, with his victorious fleet, to Byzantium and Chalkedon, to the cities of Lesbos, to Thasos, and other places, while he sent Ete- onikus to Thrace, for the purpose of thus recasting the govern- ments everywhere. Not merely those cities which had hitherto jbeen on the Athenian side, but also those which had acted as allies 1 Plutarch, Lysand. c. 5. * Xen. Hellen. ii, 2, 6. s These Councils of Ten, organized by Lysander, are sometimes called Dekarchies sometimes Dckadarchies. I use the former word by preference; ince the word Dekadarch is also employed by Xenophon in another and very different sense as meaning an officer who o: mmands a dekad.