Agesilaus

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. For when he made a journey, he would take up his quarters in the most sacred precincts by himself,[*](Cf. Xenophon’s Agesilaüs, v. 7. ) thus making the gods overseers and witnesses of those acts which few men are permitted to see us perform; and among so many thousands of soldiers, one could hardly find a meaner couch than that of Agesilaüs;

while to heat and cold he was as indifferent as if nature had given him alone the power to adapt himself to the seasons as God has tempered them. And it was most pleasing to the Greeks who dwelt in Asia to see the Persian viceroys and generals, who had long been insufferably cruel, and had revelled in wealth and luxury, now fearful and obsequious before a man who went about in a paltry cloak, and at one brief and laconic speech from him conforming themselves to his ways and changing their dress and mien, insomuch that many were moved to cite the words of Timotheus:—

1. Ares is Lord; of gold Greece hath no fear.

Asia being now unsettled and in many quarters inclining to revolt, Agesilaüs set the cities there in order, and restored to their governments, without killing or banishing any one, the proper form. Then he determined to go farther afield, to transfer the war from the Greek sea, to fight for the person of the King and the wealth of Ecbatana and Susa, and above all things to rob that monarch of the power to sit at leisure on his throne, playing the umpire for the Greeks in their wars, and corrupting their popular leaders.

But at this point Epicydidas the Spartan came to him with tidings that Sparta was involved in a great war with other Greeks, and that the ephors called upon him and ordered him to come to the aid of his countrymen.

1. O barbarous ills devised by Greeks!