Plutarch Comparison of Agesilaus and Pompey 1

[1] Now that their lives lie spread before us, let us briefly run over the points in which the two men differed, and bring these together side by side. They are as follows. In the first place, it was in the justest manner that Pompey came to fame and power, setting out on his career independently, and rendering many great services to Sulla when Sulla was freeing Italy from her tyrants;

[2] Agesilaüs, on the contrary, appeared to get his kingdom by sinning against both gods and men, since he brought Leotychides under condemnation for bastardy, although his brother had recognised him as his legitimate son, and made light of the oracle concerning his lameness. In the second place, Pompey not only continued to hold Sulla in honour while he lived, but also after his death gave his body funeral obsequies in despite of Lepidus, and bestowed upon his son Faustus his own daughter in marriage; whereas Agesilaüs cast out Lysander on the merest pretext, and heaped insult upon him.

[3] And yet Sulla got no less from Pompey than he gave him, while in the case of Agesilaüs, it was Lysander who made him king of Sparta and general of all Greece. And, thirdly, Pompey’s transgressions of right and justice in his political life were due to his family connections, for he joined in most of the wrongdoings of Caesar and Scipio because they were his relations by marriage;

[4] but Agesilaüs snatched Sphodrias from the death which hung over him for wronging the Athenians, merely to gratify the love of his son, and when Phoebidas treacherously broke the peace with Thebes, he evidently made the crime itself a reason for zealously supporting him. In a word, whatever harm Pompey was accused of bringing upon the Romans out of deference to his friends or through ignorance, Agesilaüs brought as much upon the Lacedaemonians out of obstinacy and resentment when he kindled the Boeotian war.