Agesilaus

In this contempt for the king’s hospitality, as nothing in comparison with the approval of the Greeks, I find one more reason for praising Agesilaus. Admirable too was his opinion that it is not for the ruler with the deeper coffers and the longer roll of subjects to set himself above his rival, but for him who is the better leader of the better people.

Again, an instance of his foresight that I find worthy of praise is this: believing it to be good for Greece that as many satraps as possible should revolt from the king, he was not prevailed on either by gifts or by the king’s power to accept his hospitality, but was careful not to give cause to those who wanted to revolt for mistrusting him.

There is yet another side of his character that everyone must admire. It was the belief of the Persian king that by possessing himself of colossal wealth, he would put all things in subjection to himself. In this belief he tried to engross all the gold, all the silver and all the most costly things in the world. Agesilaus, on the contrary, adopted such a simple style in his home that he needed none of these things.

If anyone doubts this, let him mark what sort of a house contented him, and in particular, let him look at the doors: one might imagine that they were the very doors that Aristodemus, the descendant of Heracles[*](Aristodemus was great-grandson of Hyllus, son of Heracles. Xenophon follows the Lacedaemonian account, according to which Aristodemus himself was leader at the time when the Lacedaemonians obtained Sparta (Hdt. 6.52). His sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, became the first joint-kings.) set up with his own hands in the days of his home-coming. Let him try to picture the scene within; note how he entertained on days of sacrifice, hear how his daughter used to go down to Amyclae[*](To the feast of Hyacinthus; see Xen. Ages. 2.17.) in a public car.