Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
great deal of difficulty effected his desires. He was in all other
things a man of great and exact justice, but when the case
concerned a friend, to be straitlaced in point of justice, he said,
was only a colorable presence of denying him. There is an epistle
written to Idrieus, prince of Caria, that is ascribed to Agesilaus;
it is this: "If Nicias be innocent, absolve him; if he be guilty,
absolve him upon my account; however be sure to absolve him." This
was his usual character in his deportment towards his friends. Yet
his rule was not without exception; for sometimes he considered the
necessity of his affairs more than his friend, of which he once
gave an example, when upon a sudden and disorderly removal of his
camp, he left a sick friend behind him, and when he called loudly
after him, and implored his help, turned his back, and said it was
hard to be compassionate and wise too. This story is related by
Hieronymus, the philosopher.
Another year of the war being spent, Agesilaus's fame still
increased, insomuch that the Persian king received daily
information concerning his many virtues, and the great esteem the
world had of his temperance, his plain living, and his moderation.
When he made any journey, he would usually take up his lodging in a
temple, and there make the gods witnesses of his most private
actions, which others would scarce permit men to be acquainted
with. In so great an army, you should scarce find common soldier
lie on a coarser mattress, than Agesilaus; he was so indifferent to
the varieties of heat and cold, that all the seasons, as the gods
sent them, seemed natural to him. The Greeks that inhabited Asia
were much pleased to see the great lords and governors of Persia,
with all the pride, cruelty, and luxury in which they lived,
trembling and bowing before a man in a poor threadbare cloak, and
at one laconic word out of his mouth, obsequiously deferring and
changing their wishes and purposes. So that it brought to the
minds of many the verses of Timotheus,
Mars is the tyrant, gold Greece does not fear.
Many parts of Asia now revolting from the Persians, Agesilaus
restored order in the cities, and without bloodshed or banishment
of any of their members, reestablished the proper constitution in
the governments, and now resolved to carry away the war from the
seaside, and to march further up into the country, and to attack
the king of Persia himself in his own home in Susa and Ecbatana;
not willing to let the monarch sit idle in his chair, playing
umpire in the conflicts of the Greeks, and bribing their popular
leaders. But these great thoughts were interrupted by unhappy news
from Sparta; Epicydidas is from thence sent to remand him home, to
assist his own country, which was then involved in a great war;
Greece to herself doth a barbarian grow,
Others could not, she doth herself o'erthrow.
What better can we say of those jealousies, and that league and
conspiracy of the Greeks for their own mischief, which arrested
fortune in full career, and turned back arms that were already
uplifted against the barbarians, to be used upon themselves, and
recalled into Greece the war which had been banished out of her? I
by no means assent to Demaratus of Corinth, who said, that those
Greeks lost a great satisfaction, that did not live to see
Alexander sit in the throne of Darius. That sight should rather
have drawn tears from them, when they considered, that they had
left that glory to Alexander and the Macedonians, whilst they spent
all their own great commanders in playing them against each other
in the fields of Leuctra, Coronea, Corinth, and Arcadia.
Nothing was greater or nobler than the behavior of Agesilaus on
this occasion, nor can a nobler instance be found in story, of a
ready obedience and just deference to orders. Hannibal, though in
a bad condition himself, and almost driven out of Italy, could
scarcely be induced to obey, when he was called home to serve his
country. Alexander made a jest of the battle between Agis and
Antipater, laughing and saying, "So, whilst we were conquering
Darius in Asia, it seems there was a battle of mice in Arcadia."
Happy Sparta, meanwhile, in the justice and modesty of Agesilaus,
and in the deference he paid to the laws of his country; who,
immediately upon receipt of his orders, though in the midst of his
high fortune and power, and in full hope of great and glorious
success, gave all up and instantly departed, "his object
unachieved," leaving many regrets behind him among his allies in
Asia, and proving by his example the falseness of that saying of
Demostratus, the son of Phaeax, "That the Lacedaemonians were
better in public, but the Athenians in private." For while
approving himself an excellent king and general, he likewise showed
himself in private an excellent friend, and a most agreeable
companion.
The coin of Persia was stamped with the figure of an archer;
Agesilaus said, That a thousand Persian archers had driven him out
of Asia; meaning the money that had been laid out in bribing the
demagogues and the orators in Thebes and Athens, and thus inciting
those two States to hostility against Sparta.
Having passed the Hellespont, he marched by land through Thrace,
not begging or entreating a passage anywhere, only he sent his
messengers to them, to demand whether they would have him pass as a
friend or as an enemy. All the rest received him as a friend, and
assisted him on his journey. But the Trallians, to whom Xerxes
also is said to have given money, demanded a price of him, namely,
one hundred talents of silver, and one hundred women. Agesilaus in
scorn asked, Why they were not ready to receive them? He marched
on, and finding the Trallians in arms to oppose him, fought them,
and slew great numbers of them. He sent the like embassy to the
king of Macedonia, who replied, He would take time to deliberate:
"Let him deliberate," said Agesilaus, "we will go forward in the
meantime." The Macedonian, being surprised and daunted at the
resolution of the Spartan, gave orders to let him pass as friend.
When he came into Thessaly, he wasted the country, because they
were in league with the enemy. To Larissa, the chief city of
Thessaly, he sent Xenocles and Scythes to treat of a peace, whom
when the Larissaeans had laid hold of, and put into custody, others
were enraged, and advised the siege of the town; but he answered,
That he valued either of those men at more than the whole country
of Thessaly. He therefore made terms with them, and received his
men again upon composition. Nor need we wonder at this saying of
Agesilaus, since when he had news brought him from Sparta, of
several great captains slain in a battle near Corinth, in which the
slaughter fell upon other Greeks, and the Lacedaemonians obtained a
great victory with small loss, he did not appear at all satisfied;
but with a great sigh cried out, "O Greece, how many brave men hast
thou destroyed; who, if they had been preserved to so good an use,
had sufficed to have conquered all Persia!" Yet when the
Pharsalians grew troublesome to him, by pressing upon his army, and
incommoding his passage, he led out five hundred horse, and in
person fought and routed them, setting up a trophy under the mount
Narthacius. He valued himself very much upon that victory, that
with so small a number of his own training, he had vanquished a
body of men that thought themselves the best horsemen of Greece.
Here Diphridas, the Ephor, met him, and delivered his message from
Sparta, which ordered him immediately to make an inroad into
Boeotia; and though he thought this fitter to have been done at
another time, and with greater force, he yet obeyed the
magistrates. He thereupon told his soldiers that the day was come,
on which they were to enter upon that employment, for the
performance of which they were brought out of Asia. He sent for
two divisions of the army near Corinth to his assistance. The
Lacedaemonians at home, in honor to him, made proclamation for
volunteers that would serve under the king, to come in and be
enlisted. Finding all the young men in the city ready to offer
themselves, they chose fifty of the strongest, and sent them.
Agesilaus having gained Thermopylae, and passed quietly through
Phocis, as soon as he had entered Boeotia, and pitched his camp
near Chaeronea, at once met with an eclipse of the sun, and with
ill news from the navy, Pisander, the Spartan admiral, being beaten
and slain at Cnidos, by Pharnabazus and Conon. He was much moved
at it, both upon his own and the public account. Yet lest his
army, being now near engaging, should meet with any discouragement,
he ordered the messengers to give out, that the Spartans were the
conquerors, and he himself putting on a garland, solemnly
sacrificed for the good news, and sent portions of the sacrifices
to his friends.
When he came near to Coronea, and was within view of the enemy, he
drew up his army, and giving the left wing to the Orchomenians, he
himself led the right. The Thebans took the right wing of their
army, leaving the left to the Argives. Xenophon, who was present,
and fought on Agesilaus's side, reports it to be the hardest fought
battle that he had seen. The beginning of it was not so, for the
Thebans soon put the Orchomenians to rout, as also did Agesilaus
the Argives. But both parties having news of the misfortune of
their left wings, they betook themselves to their relief. Here
Agesilaus might have been sure of his victory, had he contented
himself not to charge them in the front, but in the flank or rear;
but being angry and heated in the fight, he would not wait the
opportunity, but fell on at once, thinking to bear them down before
him. The Thebans were not behind him in courage, so that the
battle was fiercely carried on on both sides, especially near
Agesilaus's person, whose new guard of fifty volunteers stood him
in great stead that day, and saved his life. They fought with
great valor, and interposed their bodies frequently between him and
danger, yet could they not so preserve him, but that he received
many wounds through his armor with lances and swords, and was with
much difficulty gotten off alive by their making a ring about him,
and so guarding him, with the slaughter of many of the enemy and
the loss of many of their own number. At length finding it too
hard a task to break the front of the Theban troops, they opened
their own files, and let the enemy march through them, (an artifice
which in the beginning they scorned,) watching in the meantime the
posture of the enemy, who having passed through, grew careless, as
esteeming themselves past danger; in which position they were
immediately set upon by the Spartans. Yet were they not then put
to rout, but marched on to Helicon, proud of what they had done,
being able to say, that they themselves, as to their part of the
army, were not worsted.
Agesilaus, sore wounded as he was, would not be borne to his tent,
till he had been first carried about the field, and had seen the
dead conveyed within his encampment. As many of his enemies as had
taken sanctuary in the temple, he dismissed. For there stood near
the battlefield, the temple of Minerva the Itonian, and before it a
trophy erected by the Boeotians, for the victory which under the
conduct of Sparton, their general, they obtained over the Athenians
under Tolmides, who himself fell in the battle. And next morning
early, to make trial of the Theban courage, whether they had any
mind to a second encounter, he commanded his soldiers to put on
garlands on their heads, and play with their flutes, and raise a
trophy before their faces; but when they, instead of fighting, sent