Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/160

150 "hero-worship." During his earlier life he had, at successive periods, two great objects for these sentiments—Socrates and Agesilaus, a philosopher and a king. In his 'Eulogy of Agesilaus' he pays a tribute to the king, analogous to that which, in the 'Recollections of Socrates,' he paid to the philosopher. He does not write the life of Agesilaus, but merely gives a brief summary of some of his chief public performances in war and diplomacy, and then dilates upon his virtues. Agesilaus—who, according to Plutarch, was a short, rather mean-looking man, lame of one foot—appears to have produced a great impression upon Xenophon. But Xenophon had not the dramatic faculty requisite for portrait-painting in words. The catalogue of qualities assigned to his hero does not bring a living personality before us, but rather reads like the list of particulars in the Linnæan classification of a plant. Nor is it easy to distinguish the historical Agesilaus of Xenophon, drawn from the life, from the pseudo-historical Cyrus, drawn from fancy. Xenophon in this matter appears almost like a school-boy who can only draw one face, which he accordingly repeats for ever.

Agesilaus was, of course, according to Xenophon, a great disciplinarian, and very scrupulous in all religious observances. "A spectator would have been cheered at seeing Agesilaus first, and after him the rest of the soldiers, crowned with chaplets whenever they returned from the place of exercise, and dedicating their chaplets to Diana; for how can it be otherwise than that a cause should be hopeful, when it