Qualla: Battle of Aegospotami

Battle of Aegospotami: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FlankerFF, CC BY-SA 3.0. Most of the Athenian sailors were looking for lunch when the Spartan fleet came across the strait. They had pulled their ships up on a long beach near the mouth of a small river called Aegospotami, the Goat Rivers, on the European side of the Hellespont. They had been there for days, sailing out each morning in formation to challenge the Spartans at Lampsacus, three kilometers across the water, and each evening returning to camp because Lysander would not come out to fight. The exiled Athenian general Alcibiades, watching from a private fortress nearby, had warned the generals that the position was indefensible: the beach had no harbor, no walls, and no nearby town to feed the men. They sent him away. On the fifth day, the Spartan fleet crossed the strait and captured most of the Athenian ships before a single sea-fight had begun. The war that had ground on since 431 BC was over, and Athens had lost.

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Image: FlankerFF | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Aegospotami: How Lysander Won Without Fighting

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francesco Grue, Public domain. Lysander was the kind of commander who treated patience as a weapon. After the Spartan disaster at the Battle of Arginusae the previous year, the city had recalled him to command, even though Spartan law forbade any man from holding the office of navarch twice. They got around th...

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Image: Francesco Grue | Public domain

Battle of Aegospotami: The Beach with No Town

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francesco Grue, Public domain. Two ancient accounts of the battle survive and they disagree about the details. Diodorus Siculus says the Athenian general Philocles sailed out on the fifth day with thirty ships, planning to lure the Spartans into an attack so the rest of the fleet could spring on them from behi...

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Image: Francesco Grue | Public domain

Battle of Aegospotami: Three Thousand Men in a Field

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francesco Grue, Public domain. What happened next was not part of the battle and is not always told as part of it. Lysander gathered the Athenian prisoners and, with the agreement of his Peloponnesian allies, ordered the execution of three thousand of them, including the Athenian general Philocles. The reason ...

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Image: Francesco Grue | Public domain

Battle of Aegospotami: The End of an Age

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Francesco Grue, Public domain. Lysander did not march on Athens. He did not have to. With the fleet gone, Athens could not import grain from the Black Sea, and with the Spartan garrison at Decelea blocking land routes through Attica, the city began to starve. The siege lasted through the winter of 405 to 404 B...

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Image: Francesco Grue | Public domain