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SECTION 1.-GRECIAN CITIES OF IONIA IMPLORE AID OF LACEDEMON. AGESLAUS ELECTED KING. HIS CHARACTER.

THE cities of Ionia, that had taken part with Cyprus, apprehending the resentiment of Tissaphernes, had applied to the Lacedæmonians, as the deliverers of Greece, for their support in the possession of the liberty they enjoyed, and to prevent their country from being ravaged. We have already said that Thimbron was sent thither, to whose troops Xenophon had joined his, after their return from Persia.* Thimbron was soon recalled upon some discontent, and had for his successor Dercyllidas, surnamed Sisyphus, from his industry in finding resources, and his capacity in inventing warlike machines. He took upon him the command of the army at Ephesus. When he arrived there, he was apprised that there was a difference between the two satraps who commanded in the country.†

The provinces of the Persian monarchy, many of which, situated at the extremity of the empire, requiring too much application to be governed immediately by the prince, were confided to the care of the great lords, commonly called satraps. They had each of them in their government an almost sovereign authority, and were, properly speaking, not unlike the viceroys we see in our days in some neighbouring states. They were supplied with a number of troops sufficient for the defence of the country. They appointed all officers, disposed of the governments of cities, and were charged with levying and remitting the ributes to the prince. They had power to raise troops, to treat with neighbouring states, and even with the generals of the enemy; in a word, to do every thing necessary to the good order and tranquillity of their governments. They were independent of one another; and though they served the same master, and it was their duty to concur to the same ends, yet each being more desirous of the particular advantage of his own province, than the general good of the empire, they often differed among themselves, formed opposite designs, refused aid to their colleagues in necessity, and sometimes acted directly against them. The remoteness of the court, and the absence of the prince, gave room for these dissentions; and perhaps a secret policy contributed to keep them up, to elude or prevent conspiracies, which too good an understanding among the governors might have excited.

Dercyllidas having heard, therefore, that Tissaphernes and Pharnabasus were at variance, made a truce with the former; that he might not have them both upon his hands at the same time, he entered the province of Pharnabasus, and advanced as far as Æolia.

Zenis, the Dardanian, had governed that province under the satrap's authority; and as after his death it was to have been given to another, Mania, his widow, went to Pharnabasus with troops and presents, and told him, that having been the wife of a man who had rendered him great services, she desired him not to deprive her of her husband's reward; that she should serve him with the same zeal and fidelity; and that if she failed in either, he was always at liberty to take her government from her. She was continued in it by this means, and acquitted herself with all the judgment and ability that could have been expected from the most consummate person in the art of governing. To the ordinary tributes which her husband had paid, she added presents of an extraordinary inagnificence; and when Pharnabasus came into her province, she entertained him more splendidly than any of the other governors. She was not contented with the conservation of the cities committed to her care; she made new conquests, and took from the Lydians and Pisidians, Larissa, Amaxita, and Colona,

Hence we may observe, that prudence, good sense, and courage, belong to both sexes. She was present in all expeditions in a chariot, and in person decreed rewards and punishments. None of the neighbouring provinces had Xenoph. Hist. Græc. I. iii. p. 479-40

†A. M. 3605. Ant. J. C. 390

a finer army than hers, in which she had a great number of Greek soldiers in her pay. She even attended Pharnabasus in all his enterprises, and was of no common support to him. So that the satrap, who knew all the value of so extraordinary a merit, did more honour to this lady than to all the other governors. He even admitted her into his council, and treated her with a distinction that might have excited jealousy, if the modesty and affability of that lady had not prevented bad effects, by throwing, in a manner, a veil over all her perfections, which softened their lustre, and let them appear only as objects of admiration.

She had no enemies but in her own family. Midias, her son-in-law, stung with the reproach of suffering a woman to command in his place, and abusing the entire confidence she reposed in him, which gave him access to her at all times, strangled her, with her son. After her death, he seized two fortresses, wherein she had secured her treasures; the other cities declared against him. He did not long enjoy the fruits of his crime. Dercyllidas happily arrived at this juncture. All the fortresses of Æolia, either voluntarily or by force, surrendered to him; and Midias was deprived of the possessions he had so unjustly acquired. The Lacedæmonian general having granted Pharnabasus a truce, took up his winter quarters in Bithynia, to avoid being chargeable to his allies.

The next year, being continued in the command, he marched into Thrace, and arrived at the Chersonesus.* He knew that the deputies of the country had been at Sparta to represent the necessity of fortifying the isthmus with a good wall against the frequent incursions of the barbarians, which prevented the cultivation of the lands. Having measured the space, which is more than a league in breadth, he distributed the work among the soldiers, and the wall was finished in the autumn of the same year. Within this space were enclosed eleven cities, several ports, a great number of arable lands and plantations, with pasture of all kinds. The work being finished, he returned into Asia, after having reviewed the cities, and found them all in good condition.

Conon the Athenian, after losing the battle of Egospotamos, having condemned himself to a voluntary banishment, continued in the isle of Cyprus with king Evagoras, not only for the safety of his person, but in expectation of a change in affairs; "like one," says Plutarch," who waits the return of the tide before he embarks." He had always in view the re-establishment of the Athenian power, to which his defeat had given a mortal wound; and full of fidelity and zeal for his country, though little favourable to him, perpetually meditated the means to raise it from its ruins, and restore it to its ancient splendour.†

The Athenian general, knowing that the success of his views required a powerful support, wrote to Artaxerxes to explain his projects to him, and ordered the person who carried his letter to apply himself to Ctesias, who would give it to the king. It was accordingly delivered to that physician, who, it is said, though he did not approve the contents of it, added to what Conon had wrote, "that he desired the king would send Ctesias to him, being a person very capable of his service, especially in maritime affairs." Pharnabasus, in concert with Conon, had gone to court to complain against the conduct of Tissaphernes, as too much in favour of the Lacedæmonians. Upon the warm instances of Pharnabasus, the king ordered five hundred talents to be paid him for the equipment of a fleet, with instructions to give Conon the command of it. He sent Ctesias into Greece, who, after having visited Cnidos, his native country, went to Sparta.§

This Ctesias was at first in the service of Cyrus, whom he had followed in his expedition. He was taken prisoner in the battle wherein Cyrus was killed, and was called on to dress the wounds which Artaxerxes had received, in which he acquitted himself so well, that the king retained him in his service, aud made

A. M. 3606. Ant. J. C. 398. Xenoph. p. 487, 488.
Five hundred thousand dollars.

Diod. 1. xiv. p. 267.

† Plut. in Artax. p. 1021. Justin. 1. vi, c. 1.

·

him his first physician. He passed several years in his service in that capa city. While he was there, the Greeks, upon all their occasions at the court, applied themselves to him; as Conon did on this. His long residence in Persia, and at the court, had given him the necessary time and means for his information in the history of the country, which he wrote in twenty-three books. The first contained the history of the Assyrians and Babylonians, from Ninus and Semiramis down to Cyrus. The other seventeen treated of the Persian affairs, from the beginning of the reign of Cyrus to the third year of the ninety fifth Olympiad, which agrees with the three hundred and ninety-eighth before JESUS CHRIST. He wrote also a history of India. Photius has given us several extracts of both his histories, which are all that remain of Ctesias. He often contradicts Herodotus, and differs sometimes also from Xenophon. He was in no great estimation with the ancients, who spoke of him as a very vain man, whose veracity was not to be relied on, and who has inserted fables, and sometimes even fies, in his history.*

Tissaphernes and Pharnabasus, though secretly each other's enemies, had upon the king's orders united their troops, to oppose the enterprises of Dercyllidas, who had marched into Caria. They had reduced him to post himself so disadvantageously, that he must inevitably have perished had they charged him immediately, without giving him time to look about him. Pharnabasus was of this opinion: but Tissaphernes, apprehending the valour of the Greeks, who had been in the army of Cyrus, which he had experienced, and which he conceived would be equalled by the rest, proposed an interview, which was accepted. Dercyllidas having demanded that the Grecian cities should continue free, and Tissaphernes, that the army and generals of Lacedæmon should retire; they made a truce, till the answers of their respective masters should be known.t

While these things passed in Asia, the Lacedæmonians resolved to chastise the insolence of the people of Elis, who, not content with having entered inte an alliance with their enemies in the Peloponnesian war, prevented their disputing the prizes in the Olympic games. Upon pietence of the non-payment of a fine by Sparta, they had insulted their citizens during the games, and hindered Agis from sacrificing in the temple of Jupiter Olympus. That king was charged with this expedition, which did not terminate till the third year after. He could have taken their city Olympia, which had no works, but contented himself with plundering the suburbs, and the places for the exercises, which were very fine. They demanded peace, which was granted, and were suffered to retain the superintendency of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, to which they had not much right, but were more worthy of that honour than those who disputed it with them.t

Agis on his return fell sick, and died on his arrival at Sparta. Almost divine honours were paid to his memory, and after the expiration of some days, according to the custom, Leotychides and Agesilaus, the former son and the latter brother of the deceased, disputed the crown.§ The latter maintained that his competitor was not the son of Agis, and supported his assertion by the confes sion of the queen herself, who knew best, and who had often, as well as her husband, acknowledged as much. In fact there was a current report that he was the son of Alcibiades,|| as has been related in its place, and that the Atheian general had corrupted her by a present of a thousand darics. Agis protested the contrary at his death. Leotychides having thrown himself at his feet, all bathed in tears, he could not refuse the grace he implored of him, and owned him for his son before all that were present.

Strab. 1. xiv. p. 656. Plut. in Artax. p. 1014-1017–1020. Diod. 1. xiv p. 273. Arist. de Hist

A aim. 1. viii. c. 23

†A. M. 3607. Diod. I. xiv. p. 292.

Fhot. Cod. lxii.

Ant. J. C. 397.
Athen. i. xii. D. 594

Xenoph. Hist. Græc. 1. iii. p. 489, 490. Diod. 1. xiv. p. 26%.
Xenoph. 1. iii. p. 493. Plut. in Lys. p. 445. In Agesil. p. 597
More than one thousand eight hundred dollars

Most of the Spartans, charmed with the virtue and great merit of Agesilaus, and deeming it an extraordinary advantage to have a person for their king who had been educated among them, and passed, like them, through all the rigour of the Spartan education, supported him with their whole power. An ancient oracle, that advised Sparta to beware of "a lame reign," was urged against him. Lysander only made a jest of it, and turned its sense against Leotychides himself; endeavouring to prove, that as a bastard, he was the lame king the oracle intended to caution them against. Agesilaus, as well by his own great qualities, as the powerful support of Lysander, carried it against his nephew, and was declared king.

As by the laws, the kinglom had devolved to Agis, his brother Agesilaus, who seemed to be destined to pass his life as a private person, was educated like other children in the Spartan discipline, which was a very rough manner of life, and full of laborious exercise, but brought up youth to perfect obedience.* The law dispensed with this education only to such children as were designed for the throne. Agesilaus therefore had this peculiar advantage, that he did not arrive at commanding, till he had first learned perfectly well how to obey. From thence it was, that of all the kings of Sparta be best knew how to make his subjects love and esteem him, because, to the great qualities with which nature had endowed him for command and sovereignty, he had united by his education the advantage of being humane and popular.

It is surprising that Sparta, a city so renowned in point of education and policy, should conceive it proper to abate any thing of its severity and discipline in favour of the princes who were to reign; they having the most need of being early habituated to obedience, in order to qualify them the better for command.

Plutarch observes, that from his infancy, Agesilaus was remarkable for uniting qualities in himself, which are generally incompatible; a vivacity of spirit, a vehemence, an invincible resolution in appearance, an ardent passion for being first and surpassing all others, with a gentleness, submission, and docility, that complied instantly, and made him infinitely sensible of the slightest reprimand; so that every thing might be obtained of him from motives of honour, but nothing by fear or violence.t

He was lame; but that defect was covered by the gracefulness of his person and still more by the gayety with which he supported and rallied it himself. It may even be said, that the infirmity of his body set his valour and passion for glory in a stronger light; there being no labour nor enterprise, however difficult, that he would refuse on account of that inconvenience.

Praise, without an air of truth and sincerity, was so far from giving him pleasure, that it offended him, and was never received by him as such, but when it came from the mouths of those, who upon other occasions, had represented his failings to him with freedom.‡ He would never suffer his picture to be drawn during his life, and even when dying, expressly forbade any image to be made of him, either in colours or relievo. His reason was, that his great actions, if he had done any, would supply the place of monuments; without which, all the statues in the world would do him no manner of honour.§ We only know that he was of small stature, which the Spartans did not like in their kings; and Theophrastus affirms, that the ephori laid a fine upon their king Archidamus, the father of Agesilaus, for having espoused a very small woman : "For," said they," she will give us puppets instead of kings.

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It has been remarked, that Agesilaus, in his way of living with the Spartans, ehaved better with regard to his enemies than his friends; for he never did the least wrong to the former, and often violated justice in favour of the latter.

*Hence it was, that the poet Simonides called Sparta, the tamer of men," dauaoiußporov, as the only one of the Grecian cities, which rendered its inhabitants by good habits the most active and vigorous and at the same time the most obedient to the laws, of all manki.d, ώς μάλιςα διὰ τῶν ἔθων της πολίτας τοῖς νομοῖς πειθομένως καὶ χειροήθεις ποιᾶσαν.

↑ In Agesil. p, 596.

Flut. in Moral. p. 55.

{ Ibid. p. 191

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He would have been ashamed not to have honoured and rewarded his enemies, when their actions deserved it; and was not able to reprove his friends when they committed faults.* He would even support them when they were in the wrong, and upon such occasions, looked upon the zeal for justice as a vain pretence to cover the refusal of serving them. In proof of this, a short letter is cited, written by him to a judge, in recommendation of a friend; in which he says: If Nicias be not guilty, acquit him for his innocence; if he be, acquit him for my sake; but however it be, acquit him."t

It argues a very imperfect knowledge of the duties and privileges of friendship, to make it, in this manner, subservient to crime and a protection to bad actions. The fundamental law of friendship, says Cicero is, never to ask of or to grant any thing to friends, that does not consist with justice and honour: Hæc prima lex in amicitia sanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec facia mus rogati."

Agesilaus was not so scrupulous on this point, at least in the beginning, and omitted no opportunity of gratifying his friends, and even his enemies. By this officious and obliging conduct, supported by his extraordinary merit, he acquired great influence and almost absolute power in the city, which ran so high as to render him suspected by his country. The ephori, to prevent its effects, and give a check to his ambition, laid a fine upon him, alleging as their sole reason, that he attached the hearts of the citizens to himself alone, which were the right of the republic, and ought not to be possessed but in common.

When he was declared king, he was put in possession of the whole estate of his brother Agis, of which Leotychides was deprived as a bastard. But seeing that the relations of that prince, on the side of his mother Lampito, were all very poor, he divided the whole inheritance among them, and by that act of generosity acquired great reputation, and the good will of all the world, instead of the envy and hatred he might have drawn upon himself by keeping the inheritance. These sorts of sacrifices are glorious, though uncommon, and can never be sufficiently esteemed.

Never was a king of Sparta so powerful as Agesilaus; " and it was only," as Xenophon says, "by obeying his country in every thing that he acquired so great an authority;" which seems a kind of paradox, and is thus explained by Plutarch. The greatest power was vested at that time in the ephori and senate. The office of the ephori subsisted only one year; they were instituted to limit the too great power of the kings, and to serve as a barrier against it, as we have observed elsewhere. For this reason the kings of Sparta, from their estabishment, had always retained a kind of hereditary aversion for them, and continually opposed their measures. Agesilaus adopted a quite contrary method. Instead of being perpetually at war with them, and clashing upon all occasions with their measures, he made it his business to cultivate their good opinion, treated them always with the utmost deference and regard, never entered upon the least enterprise without having first communicated it to them, and upon their summons quitted every thing, and repaired to the senate with the utmost promptitude and resignation: whenever he sat upon his throne to administer justice, if the ephori entered, he never failed to rise up to do them honour. By all these instances of respect, he seemed to add new dignity to their office, while in reality he augmented his own power without its being observed, and added to the sovereignty a grandeur the more solid and permanent, as it was the effect of the good will and esteem of the people for him. The greatest of the Roman emperors, as Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were convinced, that the utmost a prince could do to honour and exalt the principal magistrates, was only adding to his own power, and strengthening his authority, which neither should nor can be founded in any thing but justice. Such was Agesilaus, of whom much will be said hereafter, and with whose character it was therefore necessary to begin.

• Plut. in Agesil. p. 590,

↑ Plut. in Agesil. p 603.

De Amicit. n. 40.

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