Lysander

Lysander was the Spartan admiral who won the Peloponnesian War and then made himself the most powerful man in Greece for a few years. He was born in the fifth century BC, probably into a family of reduced circumstances — one tradition makes him a mothax, a boy of non-Spartiate status raised through the Spartan system as a companion to a wealthy family's son. He was appointed navarch in 407 BC. His decisive achievement was diplomatic: he cultivated a close relationship with Cyrus the Younger, the Persian prince governing Asia Minor, and secured the funds to pay rowers at a rate Athens could not match. Persian gold, not Spartan seamanship, is what turned the naval war. He defeated the Athenians at Notium in 406 BC while Alcibiades was absent, which finished Alcibiades' career. Barred by law from a second term as navarch, he was sent out again as vice-admiral in fact if not in title. In 405 BC at Aegospotami on the Hellespont he waited while the Athenian fleet beached and dispersed to forage on four successive days, then attacked on the fifth and captured almost the entire fleet without a battle. Athens, dependent on Black Sea grain, surrendered within months. He took the city in 404 BC, had the Long Walls demolished to flute music, and installed the oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants under Critias, backed by a garrison. He set up similar boards of ten across the former Athenian empire. His accumulation of honours — cities offered him sacrifices as a god — alarmed Sparta, and he was recalled and sidelined. He was killed at Haliartus in 395 BC.

• Lived: 454 BCE – 395 BCE
• Nationality: Greek
• Roles: military_leader, admiral