Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/452

 444 ARTAXERXES. delicately treated, and to have such a crown, who had among the Persians thus naade fools of Leonidas and Callicratidas. Agesilaus, it seems, on some one having said, " the deplorable fate of Greece, now that the Spartans turn Medes ! " replied, " Nay, rather it is the Medes who become Spartans." But the subtilty of the repartee did not wipe off the infamy of the action. The Lacedaemonians soon after lost their sovereignty in Greece by their defeat at Leuctra ; but they had already lost their honor by this treaty. So long then as Sparta continued to be the first state in Greece, Artaxerxes continued to Antalcidas the honor of being called his friend and his guest ; but when, routed and humbled at the battle of Leuctra, being under great distress for money, they had despatched Agesilaus into Egypt, and Antalcidas went up to Artaxerxes, beseeching him to supply their necessities, he so despised, slighted, and rejected him, that finding himself, on his return, mocked and insulted by his enemies, and fearing also the ephors, he starved himself to death. Ismenias, also, the Theban, and Pelopidas, who had already gained the victory at Leuctra, arrived at the Persian court ; where the latter did nothing unworthy of himself But Ismenias, being commanded to do obeisance to the king, dropped his ring before him upon the ground, and so, stooping to take it np, made a show of doing him homage. He was so gratified with some secret intelligence which Timagoras the Athenian sent in to him by the hand of his secretary, Beluris, that he bestowed upon him ten thousand darics, and because he was ordered, on account of some sickness, to drink cow's milk, there were fourscore milch kine driven after him ; also, he sent him a bed, furniture, and servants for it, the Grecians not having skill enough to make it, as also chairmen to carry him, being infirm in body, to the sea-side. Not to mention the feast made for him at