Agesilaus

This man declared it contrary to the will of Heaven that a lame man should be king of Sparta, and cited at the trial of the case the following oracle:—

1. Bethink thee now, O Sparta, though thou art very glorious, lest from thee, sound of foot, there spring a maimed royalty; for long will unexpected toils oppress thee, and onward-rolling billows of man-destroying war.

To this Lysander answered that, in case the Spartans stood in great fear of the oracle, they must be on their guard against Leotychides; for it mattered not to the god that one who halted in his gait should be king, but if one who was not lawfully begotten, nor even a descendant of Heracles, should be king, this was what the god meant by the maimed royalty. And Agesilaüs declared that Poseidon also had borne witness to the bastardy of Leotychides, for he had cast Agis forth from his bed-chamber by an earthquake, and after this more than ten months elapsed before Leotychides was born.[*](Cf. Alcibiades, xxiii. 8; Lysander, xxii. 3 ff.; Xenophon, Hellenica, iii. 3, 2.)

In this way, and for these reasons, Agesilaüs was appointed king, and straightway enjoyed possession of the estates of Agis as well as his throne, after expelling Leotychides as a bastard. But seeing that his kinsmen on his mother’s side, though worthy folk, were excessively poor, he distributed among them the half of his estates, thereby making his inheritance yield him good-will and reputation instead of envy and hatred. As for Xenophon’s statement[*](Xenophon’s Agesilaüs, vi. 4.) that by obeying his country in everything he won very great power, so that he did what he pleased, the case is as follows.