"I would give all my lands, and sink out of the rank of Equal, that this had not chanced," said Agesilaus, bitterly.
"Hist! hist! not so loud."
"I had hoped we might induce the Regent himself to resign the command, and so have been spared the shame and the pain of an act that affects the hero-blood of our kings. Could not that be done yet?"
"Dost thou think so? Pausanias resign in the midst of a mutiny? Thou canst not know the man."
"Thou art right—impossible. I see no option now. He must be recalled.
But the Spartan hegemony is then gone—gone for ever—gone to Athens."
"Not so. Sparta hath many a worthy son beside this too arrogant
Heracleid."
"Yes; but where his genius of command?—where his immense renown?—where a man, I say, not in Sparta, but in all Greece, fit to cope with Aristides and Cimon in the camp, with Themistocles in the city of our rivals? If Pausanias fails, who succeeds?"
"Be not deceived. What must be, must; it is but a little time earlier than Necessity would have fixed. Wouldst thou take the command?"
"I? The Gods forbid."
"Then, if thou wilt not, I know but one man."