Agesilaus

When Agesilaus had been not yet a year in the kingly office, once while he was offering one of the appointed sacrifices in behalf of the state, the seer said that the gods revealed a conspiracy of the most terrible sort.

When the prescribed days of mourning had been religiously observed and it was necessary to appoint a king, Leotychides, who claimed to be a son of Agis, and Agesilaus, a brother of Agis, contended for the kingship.

But Poseidon showed that you are entirely in the wrong, for he drove your father out of her chamber into the open by an earthquake.

Thus Agesilaus in his return from Asia when he had asked a passage of the King of the Macedonians, who answered that he would consider of it, said, you may consider, if you please, but we shall pass in the mean time.

Not unlike this answer of the soldiers under Clearchus is the question put to the different nations of Thrace by Agesilaus, who desired to know whether they wished him to pass through their country as a friend, or as an enemy.

But the real motive of that bold and enterprising hero, was the easy acquisition of wealth and dominion, which the expeditions of Xenophon and Agesilaus had opened to his view.

Agesilaüs had now been nearly two years in the field, and much was said about him in the interior parts of Asia, and a wonderful opinion of his self-restraint, of his simplicity of life, and of his moderation, everywhere prevailed.

But Agesilaüs, seeing the Spartans with him bowed to the earth with shame and at a loss for words (for they saw that Pharnabazus was a wronged man), said:

Agesilaüs, with his friends, came first to the appointed place, and throwing himself down in a shady place where the grass was deep, there awaited Pharnabazus.

But in earnest it has come to me to call Agesilaus the king of the Lacedaemonians blessed for his judgment, who never thought fit either to have a moulded or imitated likeness of his body made — not because he was lame, as they say, and small (for what hindered the statue from being great?

Was not Agesilaus, then, king of Sparta, who obeyed other rulers?

But learning that Agesilaus had crossed over into Asia with a large force and was ravaging the country, he was so dauntless of spirit that, although he possessed no resource whatever save his body and his wits, he was yet confident that he could conquer the Lacedaemonians, albeit they were the first power in Hellas on both land and sea;

It was this which Agesilaus, for all that he was looked upon as the most sagacious of the Lacedaemonians, disregarded, not because of incapacity but because of ambition.

For he had two aims, which, though laudable, were not consistent, and could not he carried out at the same time, since he was resolved both to make war against the King and to restore his friends to their cities and put them in control of affairs. Naturally the result of his efforts in behalf of his friends was that the Hellenes were involved in troubles and perils, and, owing to the confusion whi …

but being recalled by the Ephors to oppose the designs which the other Greek states, bought with the King’s gold, were forming against Sparta, he said, A good ruler should be governed by the laws, — and sailed away from Asia, leaving the Greeks there extremely sorry at his departure.

A letter being brought him from the king of Persia by a Persian that came with Callias the Spartan, after the peace was concluded, offering him friendship and kind entertainment, he would not receive it, bidding the messenger tell the king that there was no need to send private letters to him;

When Sparta had a great many hired soldiers in pay, and wanted money to carry on the war, Agesilaus, upon the king of Egypt’s desire, went to serve him for money.

He crossed over to Asia with a fleet, went to work at once, won great fame, defeated Tissaphernes in a pitched battle, and set the Greek cities in revolt.

Timocrates did as he was bidden, the most important cities conspired together against Sparta, Peloponnesus was in a turmoil, and the Spartan magistrates summoned Agesilaüs home from Asia.

The war they waged was at first conducted by Thimbron, and then by Dercyllidas, but since they accomplished nothing worthy of note, they at last put the conduct of the war in the hands of their king, Agesilaüs.

And this was the special grievance which they had against King Agesilaüs in later times, namely, that by his continual and frequent incursions and expeditions into Boeotia he rendered the Thebans a match for the Lacedaemonians.

and all the Greeks resident in Asia, Lysander, Callicratidas, and Agesilaüs.

The Thebans, too, by always engaging singly in Boeotia with the Lacedaemonians, and by fighting battles which, though not important in themselves, nevertheless afforded them much practice and training, had their spirits roused and their bodies thoroughly inured to hardships, and gained experience and courage from their constant struggles.

and, in the second place, when the satraps and generals and commanders at the King’s court beheld him, they spoke of him with wonder, saying that this was the man who had expelled the Lacedaemonians from land and sea, and shut up between Taÿgetus and the Eurotas that Sparta which, a little while before, through Agesilaüs, had undertaken a war with the Great King and the Persians for the possession …

Moreover, when Agesilaüs, who was setting out on an expedition from the same place as Agamemnon did, and against the same enemies, was asked by the goddess for his daughter in sacrifice, and had this vision as he lay asleep at Aulis, he was too tender-hearted to give her, and thereby brought his expedition to an unsuccessful and inglorious ending.

Nor was it an argument of a much less spirit in Agesilaus, who, hearing this same king of Persia styled the Great, presently asked, In what is he greater than I, if he be not juster than I am?

and (which is more) if he hath voted right against a majority of biassed suffragans, withstood the dishonest attempts of some rich and powerful man, generously rejected bribes when offered, abstained from inordinate drinking when athirst and alone, or at night, when none sees or knows what he does, lastly, if he hath conquered the briskest attempts of love (as is said of Agesilaus);

To what I have said I may add this, that when we go upon any business, undertake any office, or chance upon any affair whatever, we must set before our eyes some excellent person, either alive or dead;

However, there are not wanting signs that even before his reign began Agesilaus was deemed worthy to be king.

No man ever made any complaint that he had been defrauded by Agesilaus:

Not to labour the point, Agesilaus gloried in hard work, and showed a strong distaste for indolence.

The Spartans have now won three battles:

or when a person of manly nature has no share in the honors (for example Cinadon, who got together the attack upon the Spartans in the reign of Agesilaus).

Read the panegyrics, Torquatus — not of those who were praised by Homer, not of Cyrus, not of Agesilaus, not of Aristides or Themistocles, not of Philip or Alexander;

After the expedition and the misfortunes which overtook it in Pontus and the treacheries of Seuthes, the king of the Odrysians, he returned to Asia, having enlisted the troops of Cyrus as mercenaries in the service of Agesilaus, the Spartan king, to whom he was devoted beyond measure.

He then left Agesilaus and made his way to Scillus, a place in the territory of Elis not far from the city.

For example, they maintained the army under Agesilaus at their own expense for eight months, but they deprived the soldiers who were fighting in the Persian cause of their pay for double that length of time;

and that Agesilaus, with the help of the army of Cyrus, conquered almost all the territory this side of the Halys river.

when Agesilaus had forced his way into Boeotia, the commanders decided to detach some battalions to the rescue;

And they were a spectacle to the cities as they marched through the Peloponnesus without doing any injury, without rudeness, and almost without noise, so that the other Greeks were amazed and asked themselves what must have been the discipline of a Spartan army under the command of the great Agesilaüs, or the famous Lysander, or Leonidas of old, since towards a stripling who was almost the younges …

Agis, on the contrary, far surpassed in native excellence and in loftiness of spirit not only Leonidas, but almost all the kings who had followed the great Agesilaüs.

Agis was of the Eurypontid royal house, a son of Eudamidas, and the sixth in descent from the Agesilaüs who crossed into Asia and became the most powerful Greek of his time.

It was not until long afterwards that Agesilaus carried his arms into Asia and prosecuted a brief war against the King’s generals along the sea-coast.

On the other hand, when we consider the remedy which Agesilaüs applied to the perplexity of the state in dealing with those who had played the coward, after the disaster at Leuctra, when he urged that the laws should slumber for that day, there was never another political device like it, nor can we find anything in Pompey’s career to compare with it;

Then again, as to the charges which we bring against the Egyptians for their treatment of Pompey, these the Egyptians lay at the door of Agesilaüs for his treatment of them.

but Agesilaüs snatched Sphodrias from the death which hung over him for wronging the Athenians, merely to gratify the love of his son, and when Phoebidas treacherously broke the peace with Thebes, he evidently made the crime itself a reason for zealously supporting him.

In their civic activities, however, Agis would seem to have taken hold of things with too little spirit;

When Agis the king died, leaving a brother, Agesilaus, and a reputed son, Leotychides, Lysander, who had been a lover of Agesilaus, persuaded him to lay claim to the kingdom, on the ground that he was a genuine descendant of Heracles.

But Lacratidas, a prudent man, and at that time the principal ephor, held Agesilaus back, saying that they ought not to dig Lysander up again, but rather to bury the speech along with him, since it was composed with such a subtle persuasiveness.

By such arguments, and because he had very great influence, he prevailed, and Agesilaus became king.

between the justice of one man and that of another, as, between that of Numa and that of Agesilaüs.

and he that is given to wantonness, against lust, as Agesilaus refused to receive a kiss from a beautiful person addressing to him, and Cyrus would not so much as endure to see Panthea.