Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/282

 260 HISTORY OF GREECE. helped to encourage Agesilaus, who was still more keenly wounded in his own personal dignity, to put forth a resolute and imperious strength of will, such as he had not before been known to possess. He successively rejected every petition preferred to him by or through Lysander ; a systematic purpose which, though never for- mally announced, 1 was presently discerned by the petitioners, bj the Thirty, and by Lysander himself. The latter thus found him- self not merely disappointed in all his calculations, but humiliated to excess, though without any tangible ground of complaint. He was forced to warn his partisans, that his intervention was an injury and not a benefit to tht>,m ; that they must desist from obse- quious attentions to him, and must address themselves directly to Agesilaus. With that prince he also remonstrated on his own account, "Truly, Agesilaus, you know how to degrade your friends." "Ay, to be sure (was the reply), those among them who want to appear greater than I am ; but such as seek to uphold me, I should be ashamed if I did not know how to repay with due honor." Lysander was constrained to admit the force of this reply, and to request, as the only means of escape from present and palpable humiliation, that he might be sent on some mission apart ; engaging to serve faithfully in whatever duty he might be employed. 2 This proposition, doubtless even more agreeable to Agesilaus than to himself, being readily assented to, he was despatched on a mission to the Hellespont. Faithful to his engagement of forget- ting past offences and serving with zeal, he found means to gain over a Persian grandee named Spithridatos, who had received some offence from Pharnabazus. Spithridates revolted openly, carrying a regiment of two hundred horse to join Agesilaus; who was thus enabled to inform himself fully about the sa- 1 The sarcastic remarks which Plutarch ascribes to Agesilaus, calling Lysander "ray meat-distributor" (KpeoSairriv), are not warranted by Xe nophon, and seem not to be probable under the circumstances (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 23 ; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 8). sand. c. 23. It is remarkable that in the Opusculum of Xenophon, a special Pane gyric called Agesilaus, not a word is said about this highly characteristic proceeding between Agesilaus and Lysander at Ephesus ; nor indeed is the name of Lvsandcr once mentioned.
 * Xen. Hellen. iii, 4, 7-10; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c 7-8; Plutarch, Ly-