[1] However, on seeing that some of the citizens esteemed themselves highly and were greatly lifted up because they bred racing horses, he persuaded his sister Cynisca to enter a chariot in the contests at Olympia, wishing to show the Greeks that the victory there was not a mark of any great excellence, but simply of wealth and lavish outlay.
[2] Also, having Xenophon the philosopher in his following, and making much of him, he ordered him to send for his sons and rear them at Sparta, that they might learn that fairest of all lessons, how to obey and how to command. Again, finding after Lysander’s death that a large society was in existence, which that commander, immediately after returning from Asia, had formed against him, Agesilaüs set out to prove what manner of citizen Lysander had been while alive.
[3] So, after reading a speech which Lysander had left behind him in book form,—a speech which Cleon of Halicarnassus had composed, but which Lysander had intended to adopt and pronounce before the people in advocacy of a revolution and change in the form of government,—Agesilaüs wished to publish it. But one of the senators, who had read the speech and feared its ability and power, advised the king not to dig Lysander up again, but rather to bury the speech with him, to which advice Agesilaüs listened and held his peace.
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[4] And as for those who were in opposition to him, he would do them no open injury, but would exert himself to send some of them away from time to time as generals and commanders, and would show them up if they proved base and grasping in their exercise of authority; then, contrariwise, when they were brought to trial, he would come to their aid and exert himself in their behalf, and so would make them friends instead of enemies, and bring them over to his side, so that no one was left to oppose him.
[5] For Agesipolis, the other king, since he was the son of an exile,
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in years a mere stripling, and by nature gentle and quiet, took little part in affairs of state. And yet he too was brought under the sway of Agesilaüs. For the Spartan kings eat together in the same
phiditium, or public mess,
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whenever they are at home.
[6] Accordingly, knowing that Agesipolis was prone to love affairs, just as he was himself, Agesilaüs would always introduce some discourse about the boys who were of an age to love. He would even lead the young king’s fancy toward the object of his own affections, and share with him in wooing and loving, these Spartan loves having nothing shameful in them, but being attended rather with great modesty, high ambition, and an ardent desire for excellence, as I have written in my life of Lycurgus.
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Agesilaus. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1917.
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