cendant of Herakles, though not a member of the royal family.
Lysander was brought up in poverty, and, like other Spartans, proved
himself obedient to discipline and of a manly spirit, despising all
pleasures except that which results from the honour paid to those who
are successful in some great action. This was the only enjoyment
permitted to young men in Sparta; for they wish their children, from
their very birth, to dread reproach and to be eager for praise, and he
who is not stirred by these passions is regarded with contempt as a
pluggish fellow without ambition.

Lysander retained throughout life the emulous desire for fame which
had been instilled into him by his early training; but, though never
wanting in ambition, yet he fell short of the Spartan ideal, in his
habit of paying court to the great, and easily enduring the insolence
of the powerful, whenever his own interests were concerned. Aristotle,
when he observes that the temperaments of great men are prone to
melancholy, instances Sokrates, Plato, and Herakles, and observes also
that Lysander, when advanced in life, became inclined to melancholy.
What is especially to be noted in his character is, that while he
himself lived in honourable poverty, and never received a bribe from
any one, that he nevertheless brought wealth and the desire for wealth
into his native country, and took away from it its old boast of being
superior to money; for after the war with Athens he filled the city
with gold and silver, although he did not keep a drachma of it for
himself. When the despot Dionysius sent him some rich Sicilian dresses
for his daughters, he refused them, saying that he feared they would
make the girls look uglier than before. However, being shortly
afterwards sent as ambassador to this same despot, when he again
offered him two dresses, bidding him take whichever he chose for his
daughter, he took them both away with him, saying that she would be
better able to choose for herself.

III. Towards the end of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, after
their great disaster in Sicily, seemed likely to lose the command of
the sea, and even to be compelled to sue for peace from sheer
exhaustion. But Alkibiades, after his return from exile, effected a
great change in the position of Athens, and raised the Athenian navy
to such a pitch that it was able to meet that of the Lacedaemonians on
equal terms. At this the Lacedaemonians again began to fear for the
result