1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Conon (general)

CONON, son of Timotheus, Athenian general. After having held several commands during the Peloponnesian War, he was chosen as one of the ten generals who superseded Alcibiades in 406 B.C. He was defeated by the Spartan Callicratidas and shut up in Mytilene. The Athenian victory at Arginusae rescued him from his dangerous situation, and as he had not been present at the battle, he was not tried with the other generals, and was allowed to retain his command. In 405, however, the Athenian fleet was surprised by Lysander, at Aegospotami, and Conon with difficulty managed to escape with eight ships to his friend Evagoras, king of Cyprus. On the outbreak of the war between Sparta and the Persians (400) he obtained from King Artaxerxes joint command with Pharnabazus of a Persian fleet. In 394 he defeated the Lacedaemonians near Cnidus, and thus deprived them of the empire of the sea, which they had held since the taking of Athens. Sailing down the Aegean to Athens, he expelled the Lacedaemonian harmosts from most of the maritime towns, and finally completed his services to his country by restoring the long walls and the fortifications of the Peiraeus. According to one account, he was put to death by Tiribazus, when on an embassy from Athens to the Persian court to counteract the intrigues of Sparta; but it seems more probable that he escaped to Cyprus and died there about 390.

See Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. 3. 8; Justin vi. 3; Cornelius Nepos, Conon; Lysias, De bonis Aristophanis, 41-44; Isocrates, Panegyricus, 41; M. Schmidt, Das Leben Konons (1873), with notes and references to authorities.