Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/279

 PLANS OF AGESILAUS. 25 < in its aim, than that of Lysander, it was at the same time yet more unmeasured in respect to victory over the Great King, -whom he dreamed of dethroning, or at least of expelling from Asia Minor and the coast. 1 So powerful was the influence exercised by the Cyreian expedition over the schemes and imagination of ener- getic Greeks : so sudden was the outburst of ambition in the mind of Agesilaus, for which no one before had given him credit. Though this plan was laid by two of the ablest men in Greece, it turned out to be rash and improvident, so far as the stability of the Lacedaemonian empire was concerned. That empire ought to have been made sure by sea, where its real danger lay, before at- tempts were made to extend it by new inland acquisitions. And except for purposes of conquest, there was no need of farther rein- forcements in Asia Minor ; since Derkyllidas was already there with a force competent to make head against the satraps. Never- theless, the Lacedaemonians embraced the plan eagerly ; the more so, as envoys were sent from many of the subject cities, by the partisans of Lysander and in concert with him, to entreat that Agesilaus might be placed at the head of the expedition, with as large a force as he required. 2 No difficulty probably was found in levying the proposed num ber of men from the allies, since there was great promise of plun- der for the soldiers in Asia. But the altered position of Sparta with respect to her most powerful allies was betrayed by the refu- sal of Thebes, Corinth, and Athens to take any part in the expe dition. The refusal of Corinth, indeed, was excused professedly on the ground of a recent inauspicious conflagration of one of the temples in the city ; and that of Athens, on the plea of weakness and exhaustion not yet repaired. But the latter, at least, had already begun to conceive some hope from the projects of Konon.3 The mere fact that a king of Sparta was about to take the com- mand and pass into Asia, lent peculiar importance to the enter- prise. The Spartan kings, in their function of leaders of Greece, conceived themselves to have inherited the sceptre of Agamemnon 1 Xen. Hcllen. iii, 5, 1. e/l7n<5af x VTa /^ey<iAaf aipixreiv /3aov/lea, etc Compare iv, 2, 3. Xen. Agesilaus, i, 36. iTUvotiv nal e/.Ttifev Karahvaetv ryv em TTJV 'EA l/ia&a arparevaaaav nporepov upxqv, etc. 'Plutarch, Agesil. c. 5. 3 Xen. Hellen. iii ; 5, 5, Pausan. iii, 9, I- VOL. IX. 170C.