Agesilaus

He held it a greater calamity to neglect that which is good knowingly than in ignorance. No fame attracted him unless he did the right work to achieve it. He seemed to me one of the few men who count virtue not a task to be endured but a comfort to be enjoyed. At any rate praise gave him more pleasure than money. Courage, as he displayed it, was joined with prudence rather than boldness, and wisdom he cultivated more by action than in words.

Very gentle with friends, he was very formidable to enemies; and while he resisted fatigue obstinately, he yielded most readily to a comrade, though fair deeds appealed more to his heart than fair faces. To moderation in times of prosperity he added confidence in the midst of danger.

His urbanity found its habitual expression not in jokes but in his manner; and when on his dignity, he was never arrogant, but always reasonable; at least, if he showed his contempt for the haughty, he was humbler than the average man. For he prided himself on the simplicity of his own dress and the splendid equipment of his army, on a strict limitation of his own needs and a boundless generosity to his friends.

Added to this, he was the bitterest of adversaries, but the mildest of conquerors; wary with enemies, but very compliant to friends. While ever ensuring security to his own side, he ever made it his business to bring to nought the designs of his enemy.