It is understanding the rights and privileges of friendship very ill, to be capable of rendering it in this manner the accomplice of crimes, and the protectress of bad actions. It is the fundamental law of friendship, says Cicero §, never to ask of, or grant any thing to friends, that does not consist with justice and honour: Hæc prima lex in amicitia fanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec faciamus rogati. Agesilaus was not so delicate in this point, at least in the beginning, and omitted no occasion of gratifying his friends, and even his enemies. By this officious and obliging conduct, supported by his extraordinary merit, he acquired great credit, 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 into possession of the whole estate of his brother Agis, of which Leotychides was deprived as a bastard. But seeing the relations of that prince, on the side of his mother Lampito, were all very poor, he divided the whole inheritance with 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 the inheritance. These sort of sacrifices are glorious, though rare, 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, 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 establishment, had always retained a kind of hereditary aversion for them, and continually opposed their measures. Agesilaus took 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 en tered 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 § De amicit. n. 40. Η Ὅτι τοὺς κοινούς πολίτας, ἰδίους κλάται, 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, whilst 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 people's good will and esteem 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. SECTION II. AGESILAUS GOES TO ASIA.-LYSANDER FALLS OUT WITH at sea. Agesilaus had scarce ascended the throne, when accounts. came from Asia, that the king of Persia was fitting out a great fleet with intent to deprive the Lacedæmonians of their empire Conon's letters, seconded by the remonstrances of Pharnabasus, who had in concert represented to Artaxerxes the power of Sparta as formidable, had made a strong impression upon that prince. From that time he had it seriously in his thoughts to humble that proud republic, by raising up its rival, and by that means re-establishing the ancient balance between them, which could alone assure his safety, by keeping them perpetually employed against each other, and thereby prevented from uniting their forces against him. Lysander, who desired to be sent into Asia, in order to reestablish his creatures and friends in the government of the cities, from which Sparta had removed them, strongly disposed Agesilaus to take upon himself the charge of the war, and to prevent the barbarian king, by attacking him remote from Greece, before he should have finished his preparations. The republic having made this proposal to him, he could not refuse it, and charged himself with the expedition against Artaxerxes, upon condition that 30 Spartan captains should be granted him, to assist him and compose his council, with 2000 new citizens to be chosen out of the helots who had been lately made freemen, and 6000 troops of the allies, which was immediately resolved. Lysander was placed at the head of the thirty Spartans, * A. M. 3608. Ant. J. C. 396. Xenoph. Hift. Græc. 1. iii. p. 495, 496. Ibid. de. Agesil. p. 652. Plut. in Agesil. p. 598. In Lysand P..446. not only upon account of his great reputation, and the authority he had acquired, but for the particular friendship between him and Agesilaus, who was indebted to him for the throne, as well as the honour which had been lately conferred upon him of being elected generalissimo. The glorious return of the Greeks who had followed Cyrus, and whom the whole power of Persia was not able to prevent - from retreating into their own country, had inspired all Greece with a wonderful confidence in their forces, and a supreme contempt for the barbarians. In this disposition of the people, the Lacedæmonians conceived it would reproach them, to neglect so favourable a conjuncture for delivering the Greeks in Asia from their subjection to those barbarians, and for putting an end to the outrages and violences with which they were con→ tinually oppressing them. They had already attempted this by their generals Thimbran and Dercyllidas; but all their endeavours having hitherto proved ineffectual, they referred the conduct of this war to the care of Agesilaus. He promised them either to conclude a glorious peace with the Persians, or to employ them so effectually, as should leave them neither leisure nor inclination to carry the war into Greece. The king had great views, and thought of nothing less than attacking Artaxerxes in Persia itself. * When he arrived at Ephesus, Tissaphernes sent to demand what reason had induced his coming into Asia, and why he had taken up arms. He replied, that he came to aid the Greeks who inhabited there, and to re-establish them in their ancient liberty. The satrap, who was not yet prepared, preferred art to force, and assured him that his master would give the Grecian cities of Asia their liberty, provided he committed no acts of hostility till the return of the couriers. Agesilaus agreed, and the truce was sworn on both sides. Tissaphernes, who laid no great stress upon an oath, took the advantage of this delay to assemble troops on all sides. The Lacedæmonian general was apprised of it, but however kept his word; being convinced, that in affairs of state, the breach of faith can have but a very short and precarious success; whereas a reputation established upon inviolable fidelity in the observance of engagements, which the perfidy itself of other contracting parties has not power to alter, will establish a credit and confidence equally useful and glorious. In effect, Xenophon remarks that this religious observation of treaties gained him the universal esteem and opinion of the cities, whilst the different conduct of Tissaphernes entirely lost him their favour. Agesilaus made use of this interval in acquiring an † exact knowledge of the state of the cities, and in making suitable * Xenoph. 1. iii. p. 496. et 652. †A. M. 3609. Ant. J. C. 395. regulations. He found great disorder every where, their government being neither democratical, as under the Athenians,. nor aristocratical, as Lysander had established it. The people of the country had no communication with Agesilaus, nor had ever known him; for which reason they made no court to him, conceiving that he had the title of general for form's sake only, and that the whole power was really vested in Lysander. As no governor had ever done so much good to his friends, or hurt to his enemies, it is not wonderful that he was so much beloved by the one and feared by the other. All therefore were eager to pay their homage to him, were every day in crowds at his door, and made his train very numerous when he went abroad; whilst Agesilaus remained almost alone. Such a conduct could not fail of offending a general and king, extremely sensible and delicate in what regarded his authority; though otherwise not jealous of any one's merit, but, on the contrary, much inclined to distinguish it with his favour. He did not dissemble his disgust. He paid no regard to Lysander's recommendations, and ceased to employ him himself. Lysander presently perceived this alteration in regard to him. He discontinued his applications for his friends to the king, desired them not to visit him any more, nor attach themselves to him, but to address themselves directly to the king, and to cultivate the favour of those who in the present times had power to serve and advance their creatures. The greatest part of them gave over importuning him with their affairs, but did not cease to pay their court to him. On the contrary, they were only more assiduous than ever about his person, attended him in throngs when he took the air abroad, and regularly assisted at all his exercises. Lysander, naturally vain, and long accustomed to the homage and submission that attended absolute power, did not take sufficient care to remove the busy crowd from his person, that continually made their addresses to him with more application than ever. This ridiculous affectation of authority and grandeur grew still more and more offensive to Agesilaus, and seemed as if intended to insult him. He resented it so highly, that, having given the most considerable commands and best governments to private officers, he appointed Lysander commissary of the stores, and distributor of provisions; and afterwards, to insult and deride the Ionians, he told them, "that they might now "go and consult this master-butcher,” · Lysander thought it then incumbent upon him to speak, and to come to an explanation with him. Their conversation. was brief and laconic. "Certainly, my lord," said Lysander,, Plut. in Agesil. p. 599, 600. In Lysand. p. 446, 4475. t "you very well know how to depress your friends."—" Yes, "when they would set themselves above me; but when they "are studious of my dignity, I know also how to let them "share in it."- -"But, perhaps, my lord," replied Lysander, "I have been injured by false reports, and things I never did "have been imputed to me. I must beg, therefore, if it be only 66 upon account of the strangers, who have all of them their eyes upon us, that you would give me an employment in your army, wherein you shall think me least capable of dis"pleasing, and most of serving you effectually." 66 The effect of this conversation was the lieutenancy of the Hellespont, which Agesilaus gave him. In this employment he retained all his resentment, without however neglecting any part of his duty, or of what conduced to the success of affairs. Some small time after, he returned to Sparta, without any marks of honour and distinction, extremely incensed against Agesilaus, and with the hope of making him perfectly sensible of it. It must be allowed, that Lysander's conduct, as we have here represented it, denotes a vanity and narrowness of mind on his side, much unworthy of his reputation. Perhaps Age-. silaus carried too far his sensibility and delicacy in point of honour, and that he was a little too severe upon a friend and benefactor, whom secret animadversions, attended with openness of heart and expressions of kindness, might have reclaimed to his duty. But as shining as Lysander's merit, and as considererable as the services he had rendered Agesilaus might be, they could not all of them give him a right, not only to an equality with his king and general, but to the superiority he affected, which in some measure tended to making the other insignificant. He ought to have remembered, that it is never allowable for an inferior to forget himself, and so exceed the bounds of a just subordination. * Upon his return to Sparta, he had it seriously in his thoughts.. to execute a project which he had many years revolved in his mind. At Sparta there were only two families, or rather branches of the posterity of Hercules, who had a right to. the throne. When Lysander had attained to that high degree of power which his great actions had acquired him, he began to see with pain a city whose glory had been so much augmented by his exploits, under the government of princes to whom he gave place neither in valour nor birth; for he was descended, as well as themselves, from Hercules. He there-.. fore sought means to deprive those two houses of the sole succession to the crown, and to extend that right to all the other branches of the Heraclides, and even,-according to some, to * Plut. in Lysand. p. 447, 448, Diod 1. xiv. p. 244, 245. |