and driving the opponents of his friends into
exile, he gave the Greeks a very unpleasant idea of what they were to
expect from the empire of Lacedaemon. The comic poet Theopompus
therefore appears to talk at random when he compares the Lacedaemonians
to tavern-keepers, because they at first poured out for the Greeks a
most sweet draught of liberty and afterwards made it bitter; whereas
in truth the taste of their rule was bitter from the beginning, as
Lysander would not allow the people to have any voice in the
government, and placed all the power in each city in the hands of the
most daring and ambitious men of the oligarchical party.

XIV. After spending a short time in arranging these matters and having
sent messengers to Laconia to announce that he was coming thither with
a fleet of two hundred ships, he joined the Spartan kings, Agis and
Pausanias, in Attica, and expected that the city of Athens would soon
fall into his hands. Finding, however, that the Athenians made an
obstinate defence, he crossed over to Asia again with the fleet. Here
he overthrew the existing constitutions and established governments of
ten in all the cities alike, putting many citizens to death, and
driving many into exile. He drove out all the inhabitants from the
island of Samos in a body, and handed over the cities in that island
to those who had previously been banished. He also took Sestos from
the Athenians, and would not allow the people of Sestos to live there,
but gave the city and territory over to those who had acted as
steersmen and masters on board of his ships. This indeed was the first
of his acts which was cancelled by the Lacedaemonians, who restored
Sestos to its inhabitants. Yet his proceedings were viewed with
satisfaction by the Greeks, when he restored the AEginetans, who had
for a long time been banished from their island, and also refounded
Melos and Skione, the Athenians being driven away and forced to give
up the cities.

By this time he learned that the people of Athens were nearly starved
out, and consequently sailed to Peiraeus and received the submission of
the city, which was obliged to accept whatever terms of capitulation
he chose to offer. I have indeed heard Lacedaemonians say that Lysander
wrote to the Ephors, saying "Athens is taken;" and that they wrote to
Lysander in answer, "To have taken it is enough." But this tale is
merely invented for effect. The real decree of the Ephors ran as
follows:--"This