Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/296

 274 HISTORY OF GREECE. construction and equipment of new triremes. Such was the influ- ence of Sparta, and so much did the local governments rest upon its continuance, that these requisitions were zealously obeyed. Many leading men incurred considerable expense, from desire to acquire his favor ; so that a fleet of one hundred and twenty new triremes was ready by the ensuing year. Agesilaus, naming his brother-in-law, Peisander, to act as admiral, sent him to superin- tend the preparations ; a brave young man, but destitute both of skill and experience. 1 Meanwhile, he himself pursued his march (about the beginning of autumn) towards the satrapy of Pharnabazus, Phrygia south and south-east of the Propontis. Under the active guidance of his new auxiliary, Spithridates, he plundered the country, capturing some towns, and reducing others to capitulate ; with considerable advantage to his soldiers. Pharnabazus, having no sufficient army to hazard a battle in defence of his satrapy, concentrated all his force near his own residence at Daskylium, offering no opposition to the march of Agesilaus ; who was induced by Spithridates to traverse Phrygia and enter Paphlagonia, in hopes of concluding an alliance with the Paphlagonian prince Otys. That prince, in nominal dependence on Persia, could muster the best cavalry hi the Persian empire. But he had recently refused to obey an in- vitation from the court at Susa, and he now not only welcomed the appearance of Agesilaus, but concluded an alliance with him, strengthening him with an auxiliary body of cavalry and peltasts. Anxious to requite Spithridates for his services, and vehemently Attached to his son, the beautiful youth Megabates, Agesilaus persuaded Otys to marry the daughter of Spithridates. He even caused her to be conveyed by sea in a Lacedaemonian trireme, probably from Abydos to Sinope. 2 ,, 1 Xcn. Hellcn. iii, 4, 28, 29 ; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 10. 8 Xcn. Hellen. iv, 1, 1-15. The negotiation of this marriage by Agesilaus is detailed in a curious and interesting manner by Xenophon. His conversation with Otys took place in the presence of the thirty Spartan counsellors, and probably in the presence of Xenophon himself. The attachment of Agesilaus to the youth Megabazus or Megabates, is marked in the Hellenica (iv, 1, 6-28) but is more strongly brought out in the Agesilaus of Xenophon (v, 6), and in Plutarch, Agesil. c. 11. In the retro it of the Ten Thousand Greeks (five years before) along the