The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE 331
prince and to reduce his chances of success. Both results would serve
Lysander's own purposes at the expense of Sparta's interests.
Callicratidas was compelled to go to Sardis and ask Cyrus for money
with which to pay his men. The young prince would not receive him
at once but made him wait for two days. It was a deliberate insult,
but its purpose is not clear. Perhaps Cyrus meant only to humble the
new man and make him understand his dependence on and subordination
to the Persian paymaster. Perhaps he deliberately intended to
anger him and produce a breach, which might open the way for the
restoration to power of Cyrus' friend and collaborator. In any case,
the result was that Callicratidas became angry and left without the
money. Xenophon reports his parting words: "He said that the Greeks
were in a most miserable condition because they flattered barbarians
for the sake of money and, if he got home safely, he would try his
best to reconcile the Athenians and the Spartans. ""Here, Callicratidas
was the spokesman for the faction in Sparta that had favored peace
and collaboration with Athens over the years and that was unhappy
with the arrangement that had placed Sparta, the liberator of the
Greeks, as they liked to think of it, in the position of working with
the barbarians to put the Greeks of Asia Minor under Persian rule.
The words had a powerful appeal to traditional Spartan sentiment,
and they amounted to a declaration of independence from Persian
control and a determination to pursue a different policy without reliance
on Persian money. 26 If carried to completion, this program would
amount to a breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of the treaty with
Persia, but the Spartans, no doubt led by the same faction as the one
supporting Callicratidas, had already violated the treaty blatantly by
offering Athens a separate peace after the battle of Cyzicus." Calli-
15 Xen. 1.6.6-7; Plut. Lys. 6.5-7: Mor. 222D.
26 lt is still valuable to read Grate's stirring, if somewhat excessive, encomium (VIII,
I6I-I66) to Callicratidas as champion of Panhellenism.
27 The last treaty with Persia required that any peace must provide the same terms
for both Sparta and Persia (B. sS.]), so the Spartan negotiations, which made no reference
to Persia, were a clear violation. The same treaty provided that "the ships of
the allies and those of the King should make war on the enemy in common," but that
clause referred to the Great King's own fleet, whose arrival was promised but never
occurred. De facto, the Spar tans had accepted the situation, and Lysander's negotiations
with Cyrus and his acceptance of money from the Persian prince could be thought to
affirm the alliance without reference to the Great King's fleet, but those who favored
independent action could argue that the failure of the Persian ships to appear nullified
the treaty.