Lysander

Lysander was a Spartan naval commander whose victory brought the Peloponnesian War to an end. Backed by Persian money, he rebuilt Spartan sea power and destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC before imposing allied oligarchies across the Aegean.

Steven Pressfield’s Tides of War places Lysander within a narrative shaped by political ambition and government, exploration, travel and cultural encounter, and court politics and dynastic power.

In non-fiction, Lysander is discussed in Plutarch’s The Rise and Fall of Athens and Adrian Goldsworthy’s Athens and Sparta. In Plutarch’s The Rise and Fall of Athens, this Plutarch collection gives biographical sources for Athens from legendary Theseus through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades and Lysander.