The end of the war
The aggressive Spartan commander
Lysander1 ultimately doomed Athenian hopes in the war by using Persian money to rebuild
the Spartan fleet and by ensuring that it was well led. When in 406 he inflicted a
defeat on an Athenian fleet at
Notion2, near Ephesus on the Anatolian coast,
Alcibiades, who had not been
present but was held to have been reponsible for the safety of the Athenian
forces,3 was forced into exile for the
last time. The Athenian fleet nevertheless won a victory off the islands of
Arginusai
4, south of the island of
Lesbos, later in 406, but a storm prevented the rescue of the crews of wrecked ships.
The Athenian commanders were condemned to death for alleged negligence in a mass trial
at Athens that contradicted the normal guarantee of individual trials. Once again the
assembly rejected a Spartan offer of peace on the basis of the status quo. Lysander
thereupon secured more Persian funds, strengthened the Spartan naval forces still
further, and decisively eliminated the Athenian fleet in 405 in a
battle at
Aegospotami,5 near Lampsacus on the
coast of Anatolia. He subsequently blockaded Athens and finally
compelled Athens
to surrender in 404 B.C.6 After twenty-seven years of near-continuous war, the
Athenians were at the mercy of their enemies.
