Conon () (before 443 BC – ) was an

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

general at the end of the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

, who led the Athenian naval forces when they were defeated by a Peloponnesian fleet in the crucial

Battle of Aegospotami The Battle of Aegospotami () was a naval confrontation that took place in 405 BC and was the last major battle of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, sin ...

; later he contributed significantly to the restoration of Athens' political and military power.

Commanding the Athenian fleet

Shortly after the

Battle of Notium The Battle of Notium (or Battle of Ephesus) in 406 BC was a Spartan naval victory in the Peloponnesian War. Prior to the battle, the Athenian commander, Alcibiades, left his helmsman, Antiochus, in command of the Athenian fleet, which was blockad ...

, Conon took over command of the Athenian fleet from

Alcibiades Alcibiades (; 450–404 BC) was an Athenian statesman and general. The last of the Alcmaeonidae, he played a major role in the second half of the Peloponnesian War as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician, but subsequently ...

, who had fled to

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

. When the new Spartan navarch (commander-in-chief of the fleet)

Callicratidas Callicratidas () was a Spartan navarch during the Peloponnesian War. He belonged to the mothax class so he was not a Spartiate, despite his status he had risen to prominence. In 406 BC, he was sent to the Aegean to take command of the Spartan f ...

took over command from

Lysander Lysander (; ; 454 BC – 395 BC) was a Spartan military and political leader. He destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, forcing Athens to capitulate and bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end. He then played ...

, he started an aggressive campaign against the Athenians in the Aegean. After taking

Methymna Mithymna () (, also sometimes spelled ''Methymna'') is a town and former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is part of the municipality of West Lesbos, of which it is a municip ...

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 Chios (; , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greece, Greek list of islands of Greece, island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, tenth largest island in the Medi ...

and gaining the aid of the Methymnaeans. 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.

Defeat at Aegospotami

Conon had been sent out to lead the Athenian forces following the recall of

in 406 BC, and in 405 BC pursued the Peloponnesian fleet under

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 stand-off, 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 (ship), Paralus, returned to Athens, while Conon, with the other eight ships, fled to Evagoras I, Evagoras of Cyprus, fearing the judgement of the Athenian people.

Aftermath and later career

As a result of this victory, Sparta defeated the Athenians and so attempted to carve out her own empire in the Aegean. Her relationship with Achaemenid Empire, Persia deteriorated, and she began raiding the satrapies of Pharnabazus (5th century BC), Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes in Anatolia. By 397 BC, Pharnabazus had persuaded the Persian king Artaxerxes II of Persia, Artaxerxes to prosecute the war by sea, and raised a fleet of 300 Phoenician and Cypriot ships. In sheer numbers they would be overwhelming, but they needed an experienced commander, and so they found Conon at Cyprus, who was only too happy for a chance to take revenge upon the Peloponnesians. First Conon moved up to Caria with a small portion of the fleet, where he was for a time blocked but then rescued by Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes. He then proceeded to Rhodes, where the pro-Spartan oligarchy was replaced by a democracy, and managed to capture food supplies being sent up from Egypt. In response to this, the Spartans decided to send out their navy, but made the mistake of entrusting it to Peisander (general), Peisander, who had no experience. Battle of Cnidus, The battle took place at Cnidus in 394 BC, and was an easy and overwhelming Persian success. The Aegean cities expelled the Spartan garrisons and accepted Persian rule. After this success, Conon felt it was safe for him to return to Athens. Pharnabazus allowed him to retain part of the fleet, and supplied money for the fortification of Piraeus and the reconstruction of the long walls joining it to Athens. These actions meant that some of the main results of the Peloponnesian War were undone - Athens regained her position as a major power in Greece, and though she had still lost her empire, Sparta had been prevented from taking it over. The next year the Spartans had opened negotiations with the Persians, and in order to secure their position in Greece offered to hand over all the cities in Anatolia to them. The Athenians sent delegates (including Conon) to announce this as unacceptable, which Tiribazus understood to mean that they still hoped to recover their empire and, outraged by this about-face, threw them in prison, Conon among them. Ancient writers give conflicting accounts of his end: some claim that he was sent into the interior of Asia and put to death; other accounts, probably more likely, record that he retired to Cyprus and died there. His son Timotheus (general), Timotheus later became another prominent general.

Commanding the Athenian fleet

Defeat at Aegospotami

Aftermath and later career

References

Further reading