The Spartan Embassy to Lygdamis

Abstract

Amongst the unattributed Apophthegmata Laconica of Plutarch is one (no. 67, 236D) which seems to refer to an episode in Spartan history not recorded elsewhere in the extant sources. The text is as follows: The details of the affair are lacking, but it is clear that the apophthegm presupposes a Spartan embassy to a tyrant named Lygdamis, on a subject which made him unwilling to receive it. The identity of the tyrant in question is not immediately certain; in addition to the famous Lygdamis of Naxos, the adventurer who assisted Pisistratus in his final attempt at securing power and was in return himself installed as tyrant of his native island, there was a Halicarnassian tyrant of that name, the son or (less probably) grandson of Queen Artemisia; and her father, who was also called Lygdamis, was quite possibly himself a tyrant. However, the chance that the reference here is to a Halicarnassian tyrant is I think remote. There is no tradition of Spartan dealings with Halicarnassus either in the time of Artemisia's father or in the generations immediately following her, nor can any plausible occasion be suggested; the former period is marked by Sparta's concentration on home affairs, the latter by her complete abdication from trans-Aegean politics in favour of Athens after 478 B.C. Thus whether the apophthegm be genuine or invented it seems unlikely that a Halicarnassian tyrant is meant; for even invented Laconisms, if credited with specific circumstances, are usually made to have reference to something either historical or at least plausible.