Noted: The Career of Gylippus
William Smith: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography & Mythology http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DG%3Aentry+group%3D12%3Aentry%3Dgylippus-bio-1: 'For all that we know of the rest of the life of Gylippus we are indebted to Plutarch (Nic. 28 ; Lysand. 16, 17) and Diodorus (13.106). He was commissioned, it appears, by Lysander, after the capture of Athens, to carry home the treasure. By opening the seams of the sacks underneath, he abstracted a considerable portion, 30 talents, according to Plutarch's text.... He was detected by the inventories which were contained in each package, and which he had overlooked. A hint from one of his slaves indicated to the Ephors the place where the missing treasure lay concealed, the space under the tiling of the house. Gylippus appears to have at once gone into exile, and to have been condemned to death in his absence. Athenaeus (vi. p. 234.) says that he died of starvation, after being convicted by the Ephors of stealing part of Lysander's treasure; but whether he means that he so died by the sentence of the Ephors. or in exile, does not appear. None can deny that Gylippus did the duty assigned to him in the Svracusan war with skill and energy. The favour of fortune was indeed most remarkably accorded to him; yet his energy in the early proceedings was of a degree unusual with his countrymen. His military skill, perhaps, was not much above the average of the ordinary Spartan officer of the better kind. Of the nobler virtues of his country we cannot discern much: with its too common vice of cupidity he lamentably sullied his glory. Aelian (Ael. VH 12.42; comp. Athen. 6.271) says that he and Lysander, and Callicratidas, were all of the class called Mothaces, Helots, that is, by birth, who, in the company of the boys of the family to which they belonged, were brought up in the Spartan discipline, and afterwards obtained freedom. This can hardly have been the case with Gylippus himself, as we find his father, Cleandridas, in an important situation at the side of king Pleistoanax: but the family may have been derived, at one point or another, from a Mothax...
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