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Lysander is a troubling figure. As a child, he was a charity case who excelled his more affluent peers; he never cared for wealth, and yet overlooked the rapaciousness of his friends, allowing money and luxury into Sparta, corrupting it. He liberated the Greek world from the yoke of Athenian imperialism, but then installed oligarchic juntas to rule with an iron fist. He conquered Athens itself, but campaigned at a war council to spare the city from destruction. But once inside the city, he threatened the Athenians with extermination if they didn't obey him. Alex Petkas, the host of the Cost of Glory podcast, joins Jonathan and Ryan in discussing Plutarch's account of the extraordinary Lysander.

Alex Petkas's Cost of Glory podcast (Lysander 1): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lysander-1-death-of-democracy/id1580153815?i=1000565510664

Ancient Life Coach: https://ancientlifecoach.com/

Speak Lead Retreat: https://ancientlifecoach.com/retreat/

Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

Isocrates' Evagoras: https://amzn.to/40NyCaP

Pindar's Olympian Odes: https://amzn.to/429sk6m

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, including Lysander (Loeb edition): https://amzn.to/3HjDnC8

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, including Lysander (Penguin edition): https://amzn.to/44amYK5

University of Chicago's Penelope Parallel Lives: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/home.html

Euripides' Electra: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226035598

Xenophon's Anabasis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780307906854

Andrew Roberts's Napoleon: A Life: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780143127857

Sean McMeekin's Stalin's War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781541672796

Alex Petkas's Cost of Glory episode 1 on the Anabasis: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/xenophon-anabasis-i-power-highlights/id1580153815?i=1000597494893

Xenophon's Hellenika: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400034765

Steven Pressfield's Tides of War: https://amzn.to/3oQF9Eq

Paul Cartledge's Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta: https://amzn.to/3LDaFi3

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Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com