Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/322

 800 HISTORY OF GREECE. we have to reproach in Lysander is, that he never tried thstt he abused the critical moment of cure for the purpose of infusing new poison into the system ; that he not only sacrificed the interests of Greece to the narrow gains of Sparta, but even the interests of Sparta to the still narrower monopoly of dominion in his own hands. That his measures worked mischievously not merely for Greece, but for Sparta herself, aggravating all her bad tendencies, has been already remarked in the preceding pages. That Lysander, with unbounded opportunities of gain, both lived and died poor, exhibits the honorable side of his character. Yet his personal indifference to money seems only to have left the greater space in his bosom for that thirst of power which made him unscrupulous in satiating the rapacity, as well as in uphold- ing the oppressions, of coadjutors like the Thirty at Athens and the decemvirs in other cities. In spite of his great success and ability in closing the Peloponnesian war, we shall agree with Pau- sanias 1 that he was more mischievous than profitable even to Sparta, even if we take no thought of Greece generally. What would have been the effect produced by his projects in regard to the regal succession, had he been able to bring them to bear, we have no means of measuring. We are told that the discourse composed and addressed to him by the Halicarnassian rhetor Kle on, was found after his death among his papers by Agesilaus ; who first learnt from it, with astonishment and alarm, the point to which the ambition of Lysander had tended, and was desirous of exposing his real character by making the discourse public, but was deterred by dissuasive counsel of the ephor Lakratidas. But this story (attested by Ephorus 2 ) looks more like an anecdote of the rhetorical schools than like a reality. Agesilaus was not the man to set much value on sophists or their compositions ; nor is ii easy to believe that he remained so long ignorant of those projects which Lysander had once entertained but subsequently dropped. Moreover the probability is, that Kleon himself would make the discourse public as a sample of his own talents, even in the life- time of Lysander ; not only without shame, but as representing the feelings of a considerable section of readers throughout the Grecian world. 1 Pausanias, ix 32. 6.
 * Ephorus, Fr. .27, ed. Didot; Plutarch, Lysander, c. 30.