Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/285

 KALLIKRATIDAS AKD LYSANDER. 263 of Lysander at Sparta was the annual change of ephors, which look place about the end of September or beginning of October. Those ephors under whom his grand success and the capture of Athens had been consummated, and who had lent themselves en- tirely to his views, passed out of office in September 404 B.C., and gave place to others more disposed to second Pausanias. I remarked, in the preceding chapter, how much more honor- able for Sparta, and how much less unfortunate for Athens and for the rest of Greece, the close of the Peloponnesian Avar would have been, if Kallikratidas had gained and survived the battle of Arginusae, so as to close it then, and to acquire for himself that personal ascendency which the victorious general was sure to exercise over the numerous rearrangements consequent on peace. We see how important the personal character of the general so placed was, when we follow the proceedings of Lysander during the year after the battle of -ZEgospotami. His personal views were the grand determining circumstance throughout Greece ; regulating both the measures of Sparta, and the fate of the con- quered cities. Throughout the latter, rapacious and cruel oligar- chies were organized, of Ten in most cities, but of Thirty in Athens, all acting under the power and protection of Sparta, but in real subordination to his ambition. Because he happened to be under the influence of a selfish thirst for power, the meas- ures of Sparta were divested not merely of all Pan-Hellenic spirit, but even, to a great degree, of reference to her own confederates, and concentrated upon the acquisition of imperial preponder- ance for herself. Now if Kallikratidas had been the ascendent person at this critical juncture, not only such narrow and baneful impulses would have been comparatively inoperative, but the leading state would have been made to set the example of recom- mending, of organizing, and if necessary, of enforcing arrange- ments favorable to Pan-Hellenic brotherhood. Kallikratidas would not only have refused to lend himself to dekadarchies governing by his force and for his purposes, in the subordinate cities, but he would have discountenanced such conspiracies, wherever they tended to arise spontaneously. No ruffian like; Kritias, no crafty schemer like Theramenes, would have reckoned upon his aid as they presumed upon the friendship of Lysander Probably he would have left the government of each city to it