So Xenophon, you wrote about Lysander like you knew him personally, and you probably did, so it might interest you to learn how he was remembered by Plutarch, who lived about 600 years after Lysander. I have always loved Plutarch's writings. Like you, Xenophon, he is accused of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story, but Plutarch is also credited with having access to, and making extensive use of, a great many library records in Greece and Rome. Plutarch's histories are generally well regarded, but we refer to them as Historiographies, since Plutarch, like you Xenophon, was interested in stories from a person's life and how they represented character in regards to their virtues or vices.
So, I will cherry pick from a few of Plutarch's statements about Lysander.
Lysander is said to have had long hair and a beard, a fashion which began with another famous Spartan named Lycurgus. He is reported to have said that a fine head of hair makes handsome men look more handsome and ugly men more terrifying. Herodotus recounts that the 300 Spartans, when preparing to do battle against the Persians at the Hot Gates, combed their hair and their beards, and did exercises on the beach. Xeonophon, in my life I have had long hair and short hair, I have dredlocked it and decorated it with shells and beads and coloured cloth, and at differing times of my life it has made me look more handsome or more terrifying, dependent upon who was casting judgement. I think it was Timothy Leary (the modern era author) who said that long hair is a sign of a free man. I can neither confirm or deny such a statement.
However, back to Plutarch...
The Spartans expect their boys from the very first to be intensely conscious of public opinion, to take any censure deeply to heart as well as to exult in praise, and anyone who remains indifferent or fails to respond to these sentiments is despised as a spiritless clod, utterly lacking in any desire to excel. This kind of ambition and competitive spirit, then, had been firmly planted in Lysander by his Spartan training, and it would be unfair to blame his natural disposition too much in this respect. On the other hand he seems to have displayed an inborn obsequiousness to the great such as one would not expect to find in a Spartan, and to have been willing to bear the arrogance of those in authority for the sake of achieving his own ends, a quality which some people regard as a great part of political capacity. Aristotle, (Problems, XXX, 1) when he observes that great natures, such as those of Socrates, Plato, and Heracle, are especially prone to melancholy, notes that Lysander also became prey to melancholy, not a first, but in his later years.
So it should be obvious why I love Plutarch so much, but there is a little parallel that I would like to bring into the discussion, in regards to the Spartan culture of exalting in praise. Jimmy Hendrix, a rather famous musician of my own era, is remembered for saying I don't consider myself to be the best, and I don't like compliments...they distract me. Hendrix is also remembered for saying Knowledge Speaks, Wisdom Listens, which makes me wonder if he was a fan of Socrates.
Back to Plutarch; his mention of melancholy, makes me wonder if this was an early understanding of Depression. It's hard to really know what people of the ancient past really thought about such a concept as depression, which is a common medical issue of my era. Certainly you did not understand brain chemistry the way we do, but there are always parallels to be found. The use of the word melancholy is from the 1960 translation (Ian Scott-Kilvert), but the 1906 John Dryden translation runs thus: Aristotle, who says that all great characters are more or less atrabilious...
So I had to look up atrabilious and I found this rather helpful entry on the Merriam-Webster website:
Atrabilious is a somewhat rare word with a history that parallels that of the more common 'melancholy'. Representing one of the four bodilly humours, from which it was once believed that human emotions originated, atrabilious derives from the Latin 'atra bilis' literally meaning 'black bile'. The word melancholy derives from the Greek 'melan-' and 'chole', which also translates as 'black bile'. In its original sense, atrabilious meant melancholy, but now is more frequently used to describe someone with an irritable or unfriendly temperament. A word with a meaning similar to that of atrabilious is 'splenetic', which is named after the organ in the body (the spleen) once thought to secrete black bile.
So was it depression, or was Lysander just a grumpy old man, venting his spleen at a changing world he didn't like? In the absence of answers, I have always enjoyed the questions, since each question is an open door, leading to further questions.
So, back to the dispute between Lysander and Callicratidas, I found this illuminating passage, again in Plutarch, regarding the difference between their leadership styles.
All those who were associated with him (Lysander) already through friendship or the ties of hospitality were promoted to important enterprises, honours, or commands, and he made himself a partner in their acts of injustice and oppression to satisfy their greed. The result was that everyone looked up to him, courted his favour and fixed their hopes upon him, believing that so long as he remained in authority all their most extravagant ambitions would be fulfilled. For the same reason they were not at all well disposed to Callicratidas, when he first appeared on the scene (in 407 BCE) to succeed Lysander in command of the fleet; and even after he had proved himself as brave and as just as a man could bbe, they still disliked the character of his leadership, which had a certain Doric simplicity and candour about it. They admired his virtue, much as they might do the beauty of some hero's statue, but they missed Lysander's whole hearted support and looked in vain for the latter's keen partiality for the interests of his own friends, so much so that when he sailed away, they wept for sheer despair.
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