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At first the Lacedæmonians 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.
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.
Now when they desire to transmit some secret of importance to him, they wrap a long narrow strip of paper 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.
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