Editing Battle of Aegospotami (section)

==Battle==
[[File:View across the Hellespont to Aigospotamoi.jpg|thumb|View across the Hellespont to Aegospotami.]]
Two accounts of the battle of Aegospotami exist. [[Diodorus Siculus]] relates that the Athenian general in command on the fifth day at Sestos, Philocles, sailed out with thirty ships, ordering the rest to follow him.<ref>Diodorus Siculus, ''Library'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0084;layout=;query=chapter%3D%23358;loc=13.106.1 13.106.1]</ref> Donald Kagan has argued that the Athenian strategy, if this account is accurate, must have been to draw the Peloponnesians into an attack on the small force so that the larger force following could surprise them.<ref>Donald Kagan, ''The Peloponnesian War''</ref> In the event, the small force was immediately defeated, and the remainder of the fleet was caught unprepared on the beach.

[[Xenophon]], in contrast, relates that the entire Athenian fleet came out as usual on the day of the battle and Lysander remained in the harbor. When the Athenians returned to their camp, the sailors scattered to forage for food; Lysander's fleet then sailed across from Abydos and captured most of the ships on the beach, with no sea fighting at all.<ref>Xenophon, ''Hellenica'' [[s:Hellenica/Book 2/Chapter 2#2:1|2.2.1]]</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great|last1=Bury|first1=J. B.|last2=Meiggs|first2=Russell|publisher=Macmillan|year=1956|edition= 3|location=London|pages=501–506}}</ref>

Whichever account of the battle itself is accurate, the result is clear. The Athenian fleet was obliterated; only nine ships escaped, led by the general [[Conon]]. Lysander captured nearly all of the remainder, along with some three or four thousand Athenian sailors. One of the escaped ships, the messenger ship [[Paralus (ship)|Paralus]], was dispatched to inform Athens of the disaster. The rest, with Conon, sought refuge with [[Evagoras I|Evagoras]], a friendly ruler in Cyprus.

Some historians, ancient and modern, suspect that the battle was lost as the result of treachery, perhaps on the part of Adeimantus, who was the only Athenian commander the Spartans captured during the battle who was not put to death, and perhaps with the treasonous connivance of the oligarchical faction at Athens, who may have wanted their city defeated in order to overthrow the democracy. But this all remains speculative.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0206:book=2:chapter=1:section=32|title=Xenophon, Hellenica, Book 2, chapter 1, section 32|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu|access-date=2017-09-11}}</ref><ref name=":0" />