self signally mistaken. On the death of Agis, Agesilaos, his younger brother, stood forth to dispute the title of his son Leotychides, a boy now about fifteen years of age. The old scandal was revived which represented him as the son not of Agis but of Alkibiades; but probably the eloquence of Lysandros was aided more powerfully by the reputation which Agesilaos had acquired as a zealous disciple and champion of the military monasticism of Sparta. Faithful in his friendships and too ready to overlook in his friends iniquities which he would have shrunk from committing himself, he had only one defect which threatened to stand seriously in his way. He was lame; and the subtlety of Lysandros was needed to explain away the prophecies which warned Sparta against allowing her power to be endangered by a lame reign. Events were to occur before his death which in the belief of many fully justified the old prediction. For the present the objection was set aside on the ground that the oracle spoke not of any bodily blemish but of the reign of one who had not in his veins the blood of Herakles. The ephors at least were soon won over by the new king. Far from showing the haughtiness by which some among his predecessors may have sought to make up for scanty prerogative, Agesilaos always rose at their entrance, while he sought their goodwill by frequent gifts which the wealth inherited from his brother Agis enabled him freely to bestow.

Agesilaos had been king for scarcely a year (398 B.C.) when as he was offering a public sacrifice the prophet announced that the victims clearly revealed the existence of a dangerous conspiracy, and ten days later some man (who he may have been, we are not told) came forward to denounce Kinadon as the traitor. It is possible and even likely that this man may have offered himself and been accepted as an accomplice in the conspiracy; but it is absurd to put faith in the tales which such miscreants may be pleased to tell, and the story of this informer exhibits Kinadon simply as an infatuated fool. That a man who had been constantly employed by the Ephors on secret missions should pick out this informer for the expressed purpose of taking him through the Agora and begging him to count the Spartiatai there present, in order that he might see who were to be assassinated and who were to be assassins, is incredible. It is enough to say that the Ephors managed to seize Kinadon with more than their usual craft and secrecy. To

the question by which they demanded the reason for his enterprise his answer was that he was determined to be the peer of the first man in Sparta. It is almost superfluous to add that torture was used to wring from him the names of his accomplices, and that with the men thus named he was scourged and goaded through the city and then beheaded.

In Asia Minor Sparta had been compelled to take a course very different from that to which she had pledged herself in her covenants with Tissaphernes. Sent out with a large army, Thimbron failed everywhere and in everything, was recalled and banished, and Derkyllidas put in his place. This officer was doubly favoured. First, it would seem that Xenophon returned with him to take the command of the Cyreian troops; and, secondly, all difficulties as to the payment of his men were removed by the lucky accident which made him master of the vast wealth of Mania, widow of Zenis governor of Eolis under Pharnabazos. This spirited woman, who had succeeded to her husband's power on her promise of discharging all his duties, had with her son fallen a victim to the greed of her son-in-law Meidias, who thought by the murder to become master of the cities of Skepsis, Gergis, and Kebrên. The first two of these he occupied; the third the governor insisted on holding for Pharnabazos, but the garrison surrendered to Derkyllidas, who went on to Skepsis and there got possession of Meidias himself. The murderer was dismissed to live as best he might in his father's house at Skepsis, and Derkyllidas became possessed of a sum equal at least to a year's pay for 8,000 men. In the following spring while he was at Lampsakos, commissioners arrived from Sparta to tell him that his command was continued for another year, and to express the satisfaction of the Ephors with the improved conduct of the Cyreians.

Having reduced Atarneus after a blockade of eight months (397 B.C.), Derkyllidas found himself opposed to the combined forces of Pharnabazos and Tissaphernes. On the banks of the Maiandros [Meander] the satraps had a splendid opportunity for dealing a heavy blow on their enemy; but Tissaphernes insisted on a conference, which ended only in a truce. Derkyllidas demanded the independence of the Greek cities: the satraps insisted on the departure not only of the Peloponnesian army but of all Spartan harmosts from the territories of the Great King. The former would agree only to refer the question to

the Ephors; but the truce had not been long made when Agesilaos was dispatched to settle the affairs of the Asiatic Greeks. Accompanied by Lysandros, Agesilaos set out with hopes and plans which aimed at nothing less than a march to Sousa and the overthrow of Persian power. With his heart fixed on this great enterprise, he resolved like Agamemnon to offer sacrifice at Aulis, before he invaded the country of the Great King. The ceremonial was actually being carried out when a body of horsemen sent by the Boiotarchs forbade the sacrifice and hurled the victims from the altar. (396 B.C.)

The Thebans thus followed up by an insult the refusal which they had already given to a request for troops to serve with Agesilaos in Asia. In this refusal they were supported not merely by the Athenians but by their old allies the Corinthians. The course of events since the fall of Athens had filled both with disgust. The victory which they had helped to win had brought to the conquerors not only vast power but vast wealth; and of this treasure Spartan greed allowed not a fraction to be shared among the allies. Sparta was indeed enriching her citizens: she was to pay a heavy penalty for her folly by and by.

The cloud was gathering even now. In Phenician and Kilikian ports triremes were being rapidly manned or repaired or built; and the fleet, when ready, was to be under the command of a man of whose ability they were well aware and whose hatred they had just cause to fear. During the seven years which had passed since the great treason of Aigospotamoi Konon had been quietly biding his time under the protection of Euagoras, despot of the Kyprian (Cyprian) Salamis, whose alliance with Persia, involving the payment of tribute yet not otherwise affronting his dignity, greatly promoted the plans of Konon and the reaction which he was striving to bring about in favour of Athens.

The appearance of Agesilaos on Asiatic soil was not without its immediate effect on the two satraps. To his demand of independence for the Greek cities they replied by asking a further armistice which would enable them to refer the matter to Sousa. The truce granted for three months seemed to Lysandros to furnish an excellent opportunity for re-asserting the influence which he had exercised during the lifetime of Cyrus. His old partisans hurried in crowds to Ephesos; but Lysandros found

that all who sought an introduction to Agesilaos through himself were dismissed with a peremptory refusal to their petitions. Stung by these manifest slights, he exclaimed bitterly, 'You know well, Agesilaos, how to put down your friends,' 'Indeed I do,' was the answer, but only in the case of those who wish to put me in the shade.' Lysandros had the good sense to see that the contest was vain, and at his own request he was sent on a mission to the Hellespont, where he did good work for Sparta.

The three months assigned for the armistice had not come to an end when Tissaphernes insisted on the immediate departure of Agesilaos from Asia, under threat of war in case of refusal. Thanking the satrap for thus setting the gods against him by his perjury, the Spartan king plunged eagerly into a contest which brought him not a little booty and enabled him to exhibit the more generous features of his character in the treatment of his prisoners. On the Persian side Tissaphernes achieved practically nothing, and a victory won some months later by Agesilaos near Sardeis seems to have filled up the measure of his iniquities in the eyes of the Persian King. Tithraustes was sent down with an order for his death, and Tissaphernes was beheaded at Kolossai. (395 B.C.)

The new satrap in his turn insisted on the departure of Agesilaos, pledging himself that the Asiatic Hellenes should have full autonomy on the one condition that they punctually paid their tribute. Pending the reference of this question to Sparta, Agesilaos agreed to a truce for six months. Meanwhile Konon had not been idle; and Pharnabazos, the most high-spirited and generous of all the Persian rulers whom the history of this age brings before us, had obtained for him the command of a fleet with which he sailed to the port of Kaunos. Here he was blockaded by the Spartan Pharax, until a reinforcement of forty Persian ships drove Pharax to Rhodes, whence the people, rising in revolt against the Spartans, compelled him to hurry away. The Spartan admiral thus found himself ignominiously thrust out, while his enemies without a blow gained a rich and unlooked for booty. The mercantile fleet sent from Egypt with corn and other stores for the benefit of Sparta entered the Rhodian harbour, knowing nothing of recent changes, and was seized as a prize by Konon.

Yet the Spartan commander may well have regarded the

revolt of Rhodes and the reappearance of Konon as matters of no great significance. Months passed on, and his fleet did nothing; and little, it was clear, could be done without a decisive order from Sousa. To Sousa accordingly Konon hastened, to convey to the king his conviction that the maritime empire of Sparta might be easily overthrown, if only he chose to engage heartily in the contest. Artaxerxes listened with more than willingness. The Spartans had abetted his brother Cyrus in his treason, and were now keeping from him Greek cities which might yield him rich tribute. Konon received not merely the order which he sought, but the power of naming any Persian officer as his colleague. His choice fell naturally on Pharnabazos, who was eager to settle scores with Agesilaos for the ravaging of his satrapy. He was aided not less zealously by his generous friend Euagoras, who served in person with his own triremes.

The expectations of Konon were more than justified in the first battle which followed this vigorous alliance. Agesilaos had named as admiral of the Spartan fleet his brother-in-law Peisandros. The advantage of numbers was on the side of Konon; but Peisandros was well aware that he could not afford to decline an engagement. The Greek cities on the mainland were retained in the Spartan confederacy against their will; and a confession of inferiority by sea would lead in the islands to something more than discontent. Seeing themselves outnumbered, his Asiatic allies fled on the attack of Konon without striking a blow. Following the old Spartan tradition, Peisandros chose to die fighting. So with the loss of more than half the Spartan fleet ended the battle of Knidos, which destroyed the maritime supremacy of Sparta. (394 B.C.) Ten years only had passed away since the catastrophe of Aigospotamoi: the Spartans cannot be charged with failure in compressing into that short period the largest possible amount of misgovernment and tyranny.

In the West also dangers had long been thickening, and Agesilaos was to witness some resolute assaults on that fabric of power which when he became king seemed to defy all attack. Persian money sent by the satrap Tithraustes strengthened the hands of the anti-Spartan party in Thebes and Corinth; and the mission of his envoy the Rhodian Timokrates was the more successful because the money which he brought was be