Agesilaus

But Agesilaüs, although he was weakened by many wounds, would not retire to his tent until he had first been carried to his troops and seen that the dead were collected within the encampment. Moreover, he ordered that all of the enemy who had taken refuge in the sanctuary should be dismissed.

For the temple of Athena Itonia was near at hand, and a trophy stood in front of it, which the Boeotians had long ago erected, when, under the command of Sparto, they had defeated the Athenians there and slain Tolmides their general.[*](In 447 B.C.; cf. the Pericles, xviii. 2 f.) Early next morning, Agesilaüs, wishing to try the Thebans and see whether they would give him battle, ordered his soldiers to wreath their heads and his pipers to play their pipes, while a trophy was set up and adorned in token of their victory.[*](Cf the Nicias, vi. 5.)

And when the enemy sent to him and asked permission to take up their dead, he made a truce with them, and having thus assured to himself the victory, proceeded to Delphi,[*](Leaving the army in command of Gylis the polemarch (Xenophon, Hell. iv. 3, 21).) where the Pythian games were in progress. There he celebrated the customary procession in honour of the god, and offered up the tenth of the spoils which he had brought from Asia, amounting to a hundred talents.

Then he went back home, where his life and conduct brought him at once the affection and admiration of his fellow-citizens. For, unlike most of their generals, he came back from foreign parts unchanged and unaffected by alien customs; he showed no dislike towards home fashions, nor was he restive under them, but honoured and loved what he found there just as much as those did who had never crossed the Eurotas; he made no change in his table, or his baths, or the attendance on his wife,

or the decoration of his armour, or the furniture of his house, nay, he actually let its doors remain although they were very old,—one might say they were the very doors which Aristodemus[*](The great-great-grandson of Heracles; cf. Xenophon, Agesilaüs, viii. 7. ) had set up. His daughter’s kannathron, as Xenophon tells us, was no more elaborate than that of any other maid (kannathra is the name they give to the wooden figures of griffins or goat-stags in which their young girls are carried at the sacred processions).[*](These figures of animals were on wheels, and served as carriages (cf. Athenaeus, p. 139 f.).)

Xenophon, it is true, has not recorded the name of the daughter of Agesilaüs, and Dicacarchus expressed great indignation that neither her name nor that of the mother of Epaminondas was known to us; but we have found in the Lacedaemonian records that the wife of Agesilaüs was named Cleora, and his daughters Eupolia and Proauga. And one can see his spear also, which is still preserved at Sparta, and which is not at all different from that of other men.