Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/229

 AFFRONT TO SPARTA. 207 hitherto ratified as legitimate by the general testimony of Greece. This was his principal recompense for the severe fatigue, the in- tense self-suppression, the narrow, monotonous, and unlettered routine, wherein he was born and died. As an individual, the Spartan citizen was pointed out by the finger of admiration at the Olympic and other festivals ; ' while he saw his city supplicated from the most distant regions of Greece, and obeyed almost every- where near her own border, as Pan-hellenic president. On a sudden, with scarce any preparatory series of events, he now felt this proud prerogative sentiment not only robbed of its former tribute, but stung in the most mortifying manner. Agesilaus, especially, was the more open to such humiliation, since he was not only a Spartan to the core, but loaded with the consciousness of having exercised more influence than any other king before him, of having succeeded to the throne at a moment when Sparta was at the maximum of her power, and of having now in his old age accompanied her, in part brought her by his misjudgments, into her present degradation. Agesilaus had, moreover, incurred unpopularity among the Spartans themselves, whose chagrin took the form of religious scruple and uneasiness. It has been already stated that he was, and had been from childhood, lame ; which deformity had been vehemently insisted on by his opponents (during the dispute be- tween him and Leotychides in 398 B. c. for the vacant throne) as disqualifying him for the regal dignity, and as being the precise calamity against which an ancient oracle " Beware of a lame reign" had given warning. Ingenious interpretation by Ly- sander, combined with superior personal merit in Agesilaus, and suspicions about the legitimacy of Leotychides, had caused the objection to be then overruled. But there had always been a party, even during the palmy days of Agesilaus, who thought that he had obtained the crown under no good auspices. And when the humiliation of Sparta arrived, every man's religion suggested to him readily the cause of it, 2 " See what comes of having set at nought the gracious warning of the gods, and put upon ourselves a lame reign ! " In spite of such untoward impression, however, the real energy and bravery of Agesilaus, which had not deserted 1 leokrates, Or. vi, (Archidamus) s. 111.
 * Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30, 31, 34.