It was by a sort of accident that news of such equipment reached Sparta,—in an age of the world when diplomatic residents were as yet unknown. A Syracusan merchant named Herodas, having visited the Phœnician ports for trading purposes, brought back to Sparta intelligence of the preparations which he had seen, sufficient to excite much uneasiness. The Spartans were taking counsel among themselves, and communicating with their neighboring allies, when Agesilaus, at the instance of Lysander, stood forward as a volunteer to solicit the command of a land-force for the purpose of attacking the Persians in Asia. He proposed to take with him only thirty full Spartan citizens or peers, as a sort of Board or Council of Officers; two thousand Neodamodes or enfranchised Helots, whom the ephors were probably glad to send away, and who would be selected from the bravest and most formidable; and six thousand hoplites from the land-allies, to whom the prospect of a rich service against Asiatic enemies would be tempting. Of these thirty Spartans, Lysander intended to be the leader; and thus, reckoning on his preëstablished influence over Agesilaus, to exercise the real command himself, without the name. He had no serious fear of the Persian arms, either by land or sea. He looked upon the announcement of the Phœnician fleet to be an empty threat, as it had so often proved in the mouth of Tissaphernes during the late war; while the Cyreian expedition had inspired him further with ardent hopes of another successful Anabasis, or conquering invasion of Persia from the sea-coast inwards. But he had still more at heart to employ his newly-acquired ascendency in reëstablishing everywhere the dekarchies, which had excited such intolerable hatred and exercised so much oppression, that even the ephors had refused to lend positive aid in upholding them, so that they had been in several places broken up or modified.[470] If the ambition of Agesilaus was comparatively less stained by personal and factious antipathies, and more Pan-hellenic in its aim, than that of Lysander,—it was at the same time yet more unmeasured in respect to victory over the Great King, whom he dreamed of dethroning, or at least of expelling from Asia Minor and the coast.[471] So powerful was the influence exercised by the Cyreian expedition over the schemes and imagination of energetic Greeks: so sudden was the outburst of ambition in the mind of Agesilaus, for which no one before had given him credit.
Though this plan was laid by two of the ablest men in Greece, it turned out to be rash and improvident, so far as the stability of the Lacedæmonian empire was concerned. That empire ought to have been made sure by sea, where its real danger lay, before attempts were made to extend it by new inland acquisitions. And except for purposes of conquest, there was no need of farther reinforcements in Asia Minor; since Derkyllidas was already there with a force competent to make head against the satraps. Nevertheless, the Lacedæmonians embraced the plan eagerly; the more so, as envoys were sent from many of the subject cities, by the partisans of Lysander and in concert with him, to entreat that Agesilaus might be placed at the head of the expedition, with as large a force as he required.[472]
No difficulty probably was found in levying the proposed number of men from the allies, since there was great promise of plunder for the soldiers in Asia. But the altered position of Sparta with respect to her most powerful allies was betrayed by the refusal of Thebes, Corinth, and Athens to take any part in the expedition. The refusal of Corinth, indeed, was excused professedly on the ground of a recent inauspicious conflagration of one of the temples in the city; and that of Athens, on the plea of weakness and exhaustion not yet repaired. But the latter, at least, had already begun to conceive some hope from the projects of Konon.[473]
The mere fact that a king of Sparta was about to take the command and pass into Asia, lent peculiar importance to the enterprise. The Spartan kings, in their function of leaders of Greece, conceived themselves to have inherited the sceptre of Agamemnon and Orestes;[474] and Agesilaus, especially, assimilated his expedition to a new Trojan war,—an effort of united Greece, for the purpose of taking vengeance on the common Asiatic enemy of the Hellenic name. The sacrifices having been found favorable, Agesilaus took measures for the transit of the troops from various ports to Ephesus. But he himself, with one division, touched in his way at Geræstus, the southern point of Eubœa; wishing to cross from thence and sacrifice at Aulis, (the port of Bœotia nearly opposite to Geræstus on the other side of the strait) where Agamemnon had offered his memorable sacrifice immediately previous to departure for Troy. It appears that he both went to the spot, and began the sacrifice, without asking permission from the Thebans; moreover, he was accompanied by his own prophet, who conducted the solemnities in a manner not consistent with the habitual practice of the temple or chapel of Artemis at Aulis. On both these grounds, the Thebans, resenting the proceeding as an insult, sent a body of armed men, and compelled him to desist from the sacrifice.[475] Not taking part themselves in the expedition, they probably considered that the Spartan king was presumptuous in assuming to himself the Pan-hellenic character of a second Agamemnon; and they thus inflicted a humiliation which Agesilaus never forgave.
Agesilaus seems to have reached Asia about the time when Derkyllidas had recently concluded his last armistice with Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus; an armistice, intended to allow time for mutual communication both with Sparta and the Persian court. On being asked by the satrap what was his purpose in coming, Agesilaus merely renewed the demand which had before been made by Derkyllidas—of autonomy for the Asiatic Greeks. Tissaphernes replied by proposing a continuation of the same armistice, until he could communicate with the Persian court,—adding that he hoped to be empowered to grant the demand. A fresh armistice was accordingly sworn to on both sides, for three months; Derkyllidas (who with his army came now under the command of Agesilaus) and Herippidas being sent to the satrap to receive his oath, and take oaths to him in return.[476]
While the army was thus condemned to temporary inaction at Ephesus, the conduct and position of Lysander began to excite intolerable jealousy in the superior officers; and most of all Agesilaus. So great and established was the reputation of Lysander,—whose statue had been erected at Ephesus itself in the temple of Artemis,[477] as well as in many other cities,—that all the Asiatic Greeks looked upon him as the real chief of the expedition. That he should be real chief, under the nominal command of another, was nothing more than what had happened before, in the year wherein he gained the great victory of Ægospotami,—the Lacedæmonians having then also sent him out in the ostensible capacity of secretary to the admiral Arakus, in order to save the inviolability of their own rule, that the same man should not serve twice as admiral.[478] It was through the instigation of Lysander, and with a view to his presence, that the decemvirs and other partisans in the subject cities had sent to Sparta to petition for Agesilaus; a prince as yet untried and unknown. So that Lysander,—taking credit, with truth, for having ensured to Agesilaus first the crown, next this important appointment,—intended for himself, and was expected by others, to exercise a fresh turn of command, and to renovate in every town the discomfited or enfeebled dekarchies. Numbers of his partisans came to Ephesus to greet his arrival, and a crowd of petitioners were seen following his steps everywhere; while Agesilaus himself appeared comparatively neglected. Moreover, Lysander resumed all that insolence of manner which he had contracted during his former commands, and which on this occasion gave the greater offence, since the manner of Agesilaus was both courteous and simple in a peculiar degree.[479]
The thirty Spartan counsellors, over whom Lysander had been named to preside, finding themselves neither consulted by him, nor solicited by others, were deeply dissatisfied. Their complaints helped to encourage Agesilaus, who was still more keenly wounded in his own personal dignity, to put forth a resolute and imperious strength of will, such as he had not before been known to possess. He successively rejected every petition preferred to him by or through Lysander; a systematic purpose which, though never formally announced,[480] was presently discerned by the petitioners, by the Thirty, and by Lysander himself. The latter thus found himself not merely disappointed in all his calculations, but humiliated to excess, though without any tangible ground of complaint. He was forced to warn his partisans, that his intervention was an injury and not a benefit to them; that they must desist from obsequious attentions to him, and must address themselves directly to Agesilaus. With that prince he also remonstrated on his own account,—“Truly, Agesilaus, you know how to degrade your friends.”—“Ay, to be sure (was the reply), those among them who want to appear greater than I am; but such as seek to uphold me, I should be ashamed if I did not know how to repay with due honor.”—Lysander was constrained to admit the force of this reply, and to request, as the only means of escape from present and palpable humiliation, that he might be sent on some mission apart; engaging to serve faithfully in whatever duty he might be employed.[481]
This proposition, doubtless even more agreeable to Agesilaus than to himself, being readily assented to, he was despatched on a mission to the Hellespont. Faithful to his engagement of forgetting past offences and serving with zeal, he found means to gain over a Persian grandee named Spithridates, who had received some offence from Pharnabazus. Spithridates revolted openly, carrying a regiment of two hundred horse to join Agesilaus; who was thus enabled to inform himself fully about the satrapy of Pharnabazus, comprising the territory called Phrygia, in the neighborhood of the Propontis and the Hellespont.[482]
The army under Tissaphernes had been already powerful at the moment when his timidity induced him to conclude the first armistice with Derkyllidas. But additional reinforcements, received since the conclusion of the second and more recent armistice, had raised him to such an excess of confidence, that even before the stipulated three months had expired, he sent to insist on the immediate departure of Agesilaus from Asia, and to proclaim war forthwith, if such departure were delayed. While this message, accompanied by formidable reports of the satrap’s force, filled the army at Ephesus with mingled alarm and indignation, Agesilaus accepted the challenge with cheerful readiness; sending word back that he thanked the satrap for perjuring himself in so flagrant a manner, as to set the gods against him and ensure their favor to the Greek side.[483] Orders were forthwith given, and contingents summoned from the Asiatic Greeks, for a forward movement southward, to cross the Mæander, and attack Tissaphernes in Karia, where he usually resided. The cities on the route were required to provide magazines, so that Tissaphernes, fully anticipating attack in this direction, caused his infantry to cross into Karia, for the purpose of acting on the defensive; while he kept his numerous cavalry in the plain of the Mæander, with a view to overwhelm Agesilaus, who had no cavalry, in his march over that level territory towards the Karian hills and rugged ground. But the Lacedæmonian king, having put the enemy on this false scent, suddenly turned his march northward towards Phrygia and the satrapy of Pharnabazus. Tissaphernes took no pains to aid his brother satrap, who on his side had made few preparations for defence. Accordingly Agesilaus, finding little or no resistance, took many towns and villages, and collected abundance of provisions, plunder, and slaves. Profiting by the guidance of the revolted Spithridates, and marching as little as possible over the plains, he carried on lucrative and unopposed incursions as far as the neighborhood of Daskylium, the residence of the satrap himself, near the Propontis. Near the satrapic residence, however, his small body of cavalry, ascending an eminence, came suddenly upon an equal detachment of Persian cavalry, under Rhathines and Bagæus; who attacked them vigorously, and drove them back with some loss, until they were protected by Agesilaus himself coming up with the hoplites. The effect of such a check (and there were probably others of the same kind, though Xenophon does not specify them) on the spirits of the army was discouraging. On the next morning, the sacrifices being found unfavorable for farther advance, Agesilaus gave orders for retreating towards the sea. He reached Ephesus about the close of autumn; resolved to employ the winter in organizing a more powerful cavalry, which experience proved to be indispensable.[484]