Lisandro tra due modelli: Pausania l'aspirante tiranno, Brasida il generale

Lysander’s taking of Sestos to colonize it with his men as a private dominiondid probably remind his contemporaries of the shadow of Pausanias’ dominion in Byzantium after the Second Persian War. Lysander did not likely mean to conjure up Pausanias’ alarming precedent; on the contrary, he probably meant to imitate Brasidas who had been Amphipolis’ founder unconditionally trusted by his soldiers, and who, nonetheless, still respected Spartan tradition. However, Lysander’s unconventional behaviour increasingly led to perceiving him as a “new Pausanias”, and spread worries about his personal initiatives and their constitutional consequences. Spartan apprehensions are proved by Agis’ sentence and in a similar remark by the Spartan Eteokles who, according to Plutarch (Lys. 19, 5), used to say that “Greece would not have suffered two Lysanders”. So, “conventional” Spartans as Agis and Eteokles gave expression to the apprehensions of Spartan conservative political groups about Lysander’s “unconventional” initiatives.