The Historians' History of the World 04

This address, Xenophon says, struck the Thirty with shame, and it was some time before Agesilaus broke the silence that ensued. Private friendship, he said, must give way to reasons of state. The Spartans, being at war with the king of Persia, were compelled to treat all his subjects as their enemies; and Pharnabazus among the rest, however glad they might be to gain him for their friend. And what they had now to propose was not that he should exchange one master for another, but that he should at once become their ally, and independent of every superior. Nor was it a poor or barren independence that they held out to him, but a rich addition to his hereditary possessions, which their aid would enable him to make at the expense of his fellow subjects, who would then be forced to own him as their master. Pharnabazus, in answer to these overtures, said that he would frankly declare his mind to them. If the king should attempt to place any other general in authority over him, he would renounce his allegiance, and ally himself to Sparta; but if his master entrusted him with the supreme command in that part of his domains, he would do his best to defend them. Agesilaus grasped his hand, and assured him of his warmest regard, and, under the excitement of a generous feeling, forgetting the excuse he had just before made for his past conduct, promised to withdraw immediately from his territories, and, though they should continue at war, to abstain from invading them, as long as there was any other quarter in which he could employ his forces. So the interview ended.

Agesilaus kept his word, and withdrew his forces from the satrapy of Pharnabazus, where indeed it is probable he would not otherwise have stayed much longer, as the spring was coming on, and he was meditating a new expedition, in which he meant to advance as far as he could into the interior. By this movement, if he gained no more decisive advantage, he expected that he should at least separate all the provinces which he left behind him from the Persian empire. With this design he proceeded to the plain of Thebe, where he encamped, and began to collect all the forces he could raise from the allied cities. He was in the midst of these preparations, when he received a message from the ephors, which was brought by a Spartan named Epicydidas, who apprised him of the new turn which affairs had taken in Greece, and summoned him to march with the utmost speed for the defence of his country. Agesilaus received this intelligence with fortitude, though it stopped him at the outset of the most brilliant career that had ever yet been opened by a Greek, and obeyed the command of the ephors with as much promptness as if he had been present in their council-room at Sparta.d

FOOTNOTES

[7] [Elea is used here to denote the district of which the city of Elis was the capital.]

[8] [It was commonly believed that Alcibiades was the father of Leotychides.]

Greek Vases

CHAPTER XLIII. THE CORINTHIAN WAR

[394 B.C.]

Two cares principally engaged Agesilaus before his departure; to provide security for the Asian Greeks in his absence, and to have a numerous and well-appointed army to lead into Greece. For the former purpose, naming Euxenus to preside, with the title of harmost, he placed a body of four thousand men under his orders. With the latter view, he proposed prizes for the cities which should furnish the best troops; and for commanders of mercenaries, horse, heavy-armed, bowmen, and targeteers, whose bands should be the best chosen, best appointed, and best disciplined. The prizes were mostly arms, elegantly wrought; but, for higher merit, or the merit of those of higher rank, there were some golden crowns; and Xenophon mentions it, as a large sum for the occasion, that the expense amounted to four talents, less than a thousand pounds sterling. Three Lacedæmonians, with one officer from each Asiatic city, were named for judges; but the decision, or the declaration of it, was judiciously referred to the arrival of the army in the Thracian Chersonesus.