Battle of Aigospotamoi

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Battle of Aigospotamoi
Greek trireme
Greek trireme
date 405 BC Chr.
place Hellespont , today Turkey
output decisive victory of Sparta
consequences End of the Peloponnesian War
Parties to the conflict

Sparta

Athens

Commander

Lysander ,
Eteonikos, Thorax, Theopompos (?),
Gylippos (?)

Philocles , Konon , Tydeus , Adeimantos , Menandros , Kephisodotos,
Eryximachos (?)

Troop strength
about 160 ships (?), land forces 180 ships
losses

minimal

170 ships,
thousands of sailors

The battle of Aigospotamoi (Greek goat rivers ) took place in September 405 BC. At the end of the Peloponnesian War .

prehistory

After the Athenians in 406 BC B.C. had their best admirals sentenced to death and executed in the Arginusen trial , were sentenced to death in 405 BC. New strategists elected, who concentrated the entire fleet on the Hellespont in order to secure the supply through the straits. There, the incompetent fleet management of the new admirals Tydeus , Philokles , Konon , Adeimantos , Menandros , Kephisodotos and Eryximachos (?) Aroused the displeasure of the exiled Alkibiades , who approached the Athenian ship camp at Aigospotamoi in order to admonish the strategists. However, they believed that they could do without the advice of the experienced general, and Tydeus in particular expelled him from the camp with gross abuse.

course

Instead of in the safe harbor of Sestos , as Alkibiades had advised, the Athenian fleet , whose high command changed daily, with 180 ships camped at Aigospotamoi on the coast of the Hellespont to take in fresh water and to control the almost equally strong Spartan fleet in Lampsakos opposite or at best to call for a fight. The Spartan commander Lysander did not respond to the challenge for several days. This delaying tactic finally had an effect as the Athenians' vigilance slackened and their rowers spread ashore after the toil of the exit to rest and get food.

On the fifth day, Lysander took advantage of this negligence to surprise the Athenian fleet on the unprotected beach and attack it in a blow-up raid, with his land forces, under the command of the Thorax or the Eteonikos, accompanying him on the shore.

On that day, the supreme command of the Athenians was held by Philocles, who probably initially challenged the Spartans with 30 ships as usual and was completely surprised by their delayed reaction after his return. The Athenian guard squadron under Konon's command, left behind in front of Lampsakos, signaled the departure of the Spartans, but much too late, so that most of the rowers and soldiers who had already swung out to forage did not get on their ships in time due to the confusion. Most of the Athenian triremes therefore set sail only half occupied or not at all, so that they could be easily removed from Lysander and Thorax.

Result

The Hellespont in antiquity

Since he could still pick up most of the Athenians on the bank, Lysander took 3,000 prisoners. With the boats captured largely intact, he was able to increase his fleet strength to 200 after the battle. Of the approximately 180 triremes of the Athenians, only the nine of the guard squadron under the command of Konons escaped, which were the only ones ready for sea when the Spartans arrived and were thus able to evade the attack.

On the run proved Conon his seafaring experience and coolness by the abandoned ship bearing the Spartans at the foothills Abarnis attacked near Lampsakos and their left-behind there mainsail steel in order to exclude any prosecution. After the defeat he sent the state ship Paralos to Athens to deliver the news, but did not dare to return himself and preferred to flee to King Euagoras I in Cyprus .

Lysander (Coin portrait 16th century)

After the battle, Lysander convened a court of the allies, where they made numerous charges against the Athenians. According to Xenophon, it was apparently the first tribunal against an inferior opponent for violating international law and crimes against humanity . The victors decided to execute the Athenian strategists and to do the same with the Attic citizens among the prisoners. There is more precise evidence of the fate of Philocles, who was accused of particular cruelty because he persuaded the Athenian army assembly to decide to chop off the right hand or thumb of all enemy prisoners after the expected victory. Lysander asked him what punishment he deserved for this crime, and when Philocles tried to deny his right to judge him, he cut his throat personally. As the only Athenian, Adeimantos was pardoned by Lysander, who had spoken out against the criminal army order. After his return to Athens, Adeimantos, who was considered a supporter of the “traitor” Alkibiades, had to defend himself against the accusation that he had betrayed the Athenian fleet to the enemy. Nothing is known about the exact fate of Tydeus, Menandros and the others. If they had not already died in battle, Lysander would execute them.

On behalf of Lysander, the Milesian pirate Theopompos brought the news of the victory to Laconia in just three days . Lysander had the extensive booty from the battle brought to Sparta by the strategist Gylippus , the victor of Syracuse , who apparently withheld part of the money. When the Spartan government noticed the fraud, they tried Gylippos and sentenced him to death in absentia since he had since fled.

consequences

The naval power of Athens was completely destroyed in the battle, and when Lysander blocked the Piraeus with his fleet after arriving in the Saronic Gulf, the Attic Empire was lost and the city could no longer be defended. Without a fleet, without income from the sound tariff and without the essential grain imports from the Black Sea, Athens was forced to suffer after a starvation blockade by sea and land in 404 BC. Unconditionally surrender. With that the Peloponnesian War was over.

So decisive was Lysander's victory that he received unheard-of honors to date. The returning oligarchs on Samos renamed the cult of Hera in Λυσάνδρεια, erected an altar and granted it divine honors. Lysander was the first Greek to be so honored during his lifetime, as a traditional Paian testifies to him. The Samians also erected statues of honor of him in Olympia, in Artemision of Ephesus and even in Sparta. Poets glorified his deeds.

Most famous, however, was the monument to the Aigospotamoi battle, also known as the "Nauarchendenkmal", which stood at the beginning of the processional street in Delphi. Significantly, it was erected directly opposite the Athens Memorial to the Battle of Marathon . In addition, the Nauarchendenkmal had three times the number of gods and people than the group of the marathon winner Miltiades. In front of 20 statues of the Grisons and Spartans stood a group with the seer Agias, Lysander's helmsman Hermon, but he himself was crowned by Poseidon. Images of gods of Apollo, Zeus, Artemis and the Dioscuri adorn the monument. But this was not the only monument to the battle in Delphi: Cyrus donated a gold and ivory model of a trireme.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Xenophon , Hellenika 2, 1, 16.
  2. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 26; Plutarch , Alkibiades 36-37.
  3. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 27-28; Diodor , Bibliothek 13, 105-106; Plutarch, Lysander 11.
  4. ↑ Plutarch, Lysander 13; Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 28 u. 2, 2, 5.
  5. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 29.
  6. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 30-32; Plutarch, Lysander 13.
  7. ↑ Xenophon, Hellenika 2, 1, 30; Plutarch, Lysander 16.
  8. ↑ See The Fragments of the Greek Historians , 76F71.
  9. ↑ See pause. III, 17.4; VI, 3.14-15; X, 9.7.
  10. ↑ See Plut. Lys. 18.4.
  11. ↑ See pause. X, 9.7-10.
  12. ↑ See Plut. Lys. 18.1.