Conon
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Conon (Greek: Κόνων) (before 443 BC – c. 389 BC)[1] was an Athenian general at the end of the Peloponnesian War, who led the Athenian naval forces when they were defeated by a Peloponnesian fleet in the crucial Battle of Aegospotami; later he contributed significantly to the restoration of Athens' political and military power.
Shortly after the Battle of Notium, Conon took over command of the Athenian fleet from Alcibiades, who had fled to Thrace. When the new Spartan navarch (commander-in-chief of the fleet) Callicratidas took over command from Lysander, he started an aggressive campaign against the Athenians in the Aegean. After taking Methymna in Lesbos, he sent a message to Conon, declaring that he would put an end to Conon's command of the sea. Soon thereafter, Callicratidas caught Conon's fleet of seventy ships at sea and pursued him towards Mytilene Harbor on Lesbos, where in the ensuing battle, Conon lost thirty ships. Conon drew the remaining forty ships up onto the beach, but while blockading him from sea, Callicratidas also surrounded him on land, having transported land forces from Chios and gaining the aid of the Methymnaeans.[2]
Besieged by land and sea, Conon was unable to break out from the vastly superior forces that surrounded him and only barely slipped a messenger ship out to Athens. After some initial panic, Athens sent a sizable force sent out to raise the siege. Callicraditas met this force at the Battle of Arginusae. His force was soundly defeated, and Callicratidas himself was killed. After his death, Lysander returned from Sparta to take command of Sparta's naval efforts in the Aegean.[3]
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Conon had been sent out to lead the Athenian forces following the recall of Alcibiades in 406 BC and, in 405 BC pursued the Peloponnesian fleet under Lysander to the Hellespont. Once there, the Peloponnesian took up a strong defensive position at Lampsacus and as they could not lure them out, the Athenians retreated to Aegospotami. Alcibiades came to warn them of the danger of their position, as they were based on an open beach without harbours, and advised them to move to Sestos about two miles away from where they were retrieving supplies. It seems that Alcibiades' advice was ignored and perhaps ridiculed.
On the fifth day of the standoff, Lysander sent out scouts to spy on the Athenians. They signalled the main army once the Athenian crews had disembarked to take their meals. Thus, when Lysander attacked almost the entire Athenian navy was caught unprepared and captured without resistance, and all the men taken were put to death. It was generally believed that some kind of treachery was involved, but Conon himself was never implicated. His ship was one of nine which escaped the disaster, boldly rushing to Lampsacus where the Spartans had left their fleet's sails (as was typical before a naval battle) and so preventing any effective means of pursuit. One of the nine Athenian ships to escape, the Paralus, returned to Athens, while Conon, with the other eight ships, fled to Evagoras of Cyprus, fearing the judgement of the Athenian people.
