Conon fled to exile on the island of Cyprus, well knowing the fate that would await him, like the generals of Arginusae, if he returned home. The Paralus sailed directly to Athens to bring the sad tidings of the battle, while Lysander dispatched a privateer to report to Sparta.[10] “When the Paralus arrived at Athens it was night,” says Xenophon.
The calamity was reported, and the sound of wailing moved from the Piraeus through the Long Walls to the city as each man told his neighbor. No one slept that night. The people lamented not only the fallen sailors but much rather themselves, convinced that they would suffer the same fate they had inflicted on the Melians, those colonists of Sparta they had captured by siege, as well as the Histiaeans, the Scionaeans, the Toronaeans, the Aeginetans, and their many other Greek victims.[11]
The Athenians were doomed. Their strength was in their navy, and now the battle fleet was destroyed and the fleet’s crews captured or scattered.
Having destroyed the Athenian fleet, Lysander quickly forced the cities of the Bosporus to capitulate to him. Now that he controlled the trade routes from the Black Sea there would be no more food for Athens. Lysander subsequently gained control of the whole Aegean, except for Samos. Independent as long as she controlled the sea, Athens was now surrounded by enemies. Lysander occupied the harbor in Piraeus with 150 ships, while King Pausanias marched from Sparta with an army to join King Agis at the fort of Decelea. With a Spartan fleet in their harbor and two Spartan armies camped just outside their walls—Pausanias occupied the grounds of the Academy gymnasium—the situation was hopeless.[12]
The many atrocities the Athenians had committed during the war on the grounds that might makes right, that Athens was the hawk and her enemies the nightingale, now haunted them. Their enemies were in a position to do to the Athenians what the Athenians had done to many others whose only crime had been to be on the wrong side of the war. Truly, allote allos echei, what goes around comes around.
Behind their walls the Athenians held out through the autumn and winter of 405-404. (Sparta’s ability to storm a walled city remained almost non-existent.) The Athenians were terrified of what would happen to them if they surrendered, but they would soon starve if they didn’t. The government of Athens was paralyzed as well. One citizen who had proposed to the Council offering to tear down the walls as a concession to the enemy was put in prison and a decree was passed outlawing such a proposal.[13] Yet in the new reality Athenian intransigence made no sense. Finally the government sent ambassadors, first to King Agis and then to Sparta itself, with a minimal proposal to make peace without tearing down their walls. The Spartans rejected this proposal immediately. Theramenes of Athens stepped forward, offering to negotiate directly with Lysander. His embassy lasted more than three months without accomplishing anything, but at its conclusion Theramenes was given full powers to negotiate with the Spartan government.[14] Meanwhile, Athens was still besieged. Food was quickly running out and people were growing desperate. But the abstemious Socrates, for his part, “lived no worse than when the city was most prosperous.”[15]
The Spartans summoned a great congress of allies to their city in the spring of 404. Many of the allies including the Corinthians and Thebans favored obliterating Athens in retaliation for the many wrongs they had done. The Spartans, however, showed a measure of idealism and generosity. They reminded their allies that Athens had saved Greece from the Persian invasion seventy-five years earlier. They would not hear of the destruction of the great benefactor of Greece. Instead, they settled on a demand to tear down the Long Walls and the walls of Piraeus—thus taking away Athens’ ability to flourish through sea power—and to surrender all but twelve of their remaining warships—thus allowing them only a coast guard. Further, the Athenians should bring back their exiles (including pro-Spartan conservatives) and conform to Spartan foreign policy. They were also required, ominously, to be governed by their “ancestral constitution.”[16]
When Theramenes returned with the Spartan demands, he was thronged by starving citizens begging to know if he had been successful. The next day the Assembly met. There was some opposition to the Spartan demands, but by now it was obvious to the great majority of citizens that the Spartan offer was far better than what Sparta’s allies had in store for the Athenians. The Assembly ratified the agreement. Lysander sailed to Samos to ensure the surrender of the last military outpost of the Athenian empire. When he returned at the end of the summer, he found the Long Walls still standing and the Athenian government still unreformed. He demanded that the Athenians at once carry out the terms of the surrender.[17] “When the Athenians had granted all these concessions, Lysander sent to the city for many flute-girls, and gathering those already in his camp, he proceeded to tear down the walls and burn the triremes to the accompaniment of flute music, while the Spartan allies put wreaths on their heads and celebrated the day that marked the beginning of their freedom.”[18] Indeed, many could hope that with the end of Athenian imperialism, Greece looked forward to a new day of freedom and prosperity. While their enemies partied, the Athenians mourned. But the worst had been avoided. They had not been enslaved nor had their city been razed. Though the walls of Piraeus and sections of the Long Walls were torn down, the city walls of Athens itself remained intact.[19]
[10].Xenophon Hellenica 2.1.29-30.
[11].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.3.
[12].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.1-2, 5-9.
[13].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.15.
[14].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.16-17.
[15].Xenophon Apology 18.
[16].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.19-20; Aristotle Constitution of Athens 34.1.
[17].Diodorus Siculus 14.3.2-7; Plutarch Lysander 15.
[18].Plutarch Lysander 15.4.
[19].Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.21-23.