At first the Lacedaemonians paid no attention to complaints brought against him; but when Pharnabazus, who had been wronged by Lysander’s depredations on his country, sent an embassy to Sparta to demand justice, the Ephors were much enraged.  They put to death Thorax, one of his friends, whom they found in possession of silver coin, and they sent a skytale to him bidding him appear before them.  I will now explain what a skytale was.  When the Ephors sent out any one as general or admiral of their forces, they used to prepare two round sticks of wood of exactly the same length and thickness, corresponding with one another at the ends.  One of these they kept themselves, and the other they gave to the person sent out.  These sticks they call skytales.  Now when they desire to transmit some secret of importance to him, they wrap a long narrow strip of paper[152] like a strap round the skytale which is in their possession, leaving no intervals, but completely covering the stick along its whole length with the paper.  When this has been done they write upon the paper while it is upon the stick, and after writing they unwind the paper and send it to the general without the stick.  When he receives it, it is entirely illegible, as the letters have no connection, but he winds it round the stick in his possession so that the folds correspond to one another, and then the whole message can be read.  The paper is called skytale as well as the stick, as a thing measured is called by the name of the measure.

XX.  Lysander, when this skytale reached him at the Hellespont, was much troubled, and as he especially feared the accusations of Pharnabazus, he hastened to confer with him, with a view to settling their dispute.  When they met, Lysander begged him to write a second letter to the Spartan government, stating that he had not received any wrong, and that he had no charge to bring against him.  It was, however, a case of “diamond cut diamond,” as the proverb has it, for Pharnabazus, while he ostensibly promised to do everything that Lysander wished, and to send publicly a letter dictated by him, had by him another privately-written despatch, and when the seals were about to be affixed, as the two letters looked exactly alike, he substituted the privately-written one for that which Lysander had seen.  When then Lysander reached Lacedaemon, and proceeded, as it customary, to the senate-house, he handed over to the Ephors this letter of Pharnabazus, with the conviction that thereby he was quashing the most important of all the charges against himself; for Pharnabazus was much loved by the Lacedaemonians, because he had taken their part in the war more zealously than any other Persian satrap.  When, however, the Ephors showed him the letter, and he perceived that “Others besides Odysseus[153] can contrive,” he retired in great confusion, and a few days afterwards, on meeting with the Ephors, informed them that he must go and pay a sacrifice to Ammon[154]; which he had