Agesilaus, who was in the prime of life, was no less eager to display his military talents in such a brilliant field, than Lysander to renew his intrigues, and to replace his creatures in the posts from which they had been dislodged. He therefore offered to take the command of an expedition to Asia, for which he required no more than two thousand neodamode troops, and six thousand of the allies, and desired to be accompanied by a council of thirty Spartans—which he probably knew would, according to usage, be forced upon him—and by Lysander among them. His offer was accepted, and all his requests granted, with the addition of six months’ pay for the army. Corinth, Thebes, and Athens, were called upon to contribute their forces, but they all refused.
It was the first time since the expedition of Menelaus that a king of Sparta had undertaken to invade Asia; and Agesilaus, partly perhaps for the sake of the omen, and partly for the sake of his own renown, was willing to associate his enterprise with the recollection of that heroic adventure. He therefore stopped at Aulis, to sacrifice there after the example of Agamemnon. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they found on the altar. He however stifled his resentment, and embarked again for Geræstus, where he found the bulk of his armament assembled, and sailed with it to Ephesus.
Soon after his arrival he received a message from Tissaphernes, calling on him to explain the design of his coming. Agesilaus replied, that his object was to restore the Asiatic Greeks to the independence which their brethren enjoyed on the other side of the Ægean. The satrap on this proposed a truce until the king’s pleasure could be taken on this demand; he engaged himself to support it with all the credit he possessed, and professed to believe that the court would comply with it. Agesilaus consented to the proposal, only requiring security for the observance of the engagement, and even this security was no more than the oath of Tissaphernes, which he pledged with due solemnity to Dercyllidas, and two other Spartan commissioners, who were sent to ratify the convention. Nothing however was farther from the mind of either party than the thought of peace. Tissaphernes, as soon as he had taken the oath, sent to the king for a reinforcement to enable him to take the field; and Agesilaus, who was well aware of his intentions, and probably would not otherwise have granted the truce, though he observed it with strict fidelity, undoubtedly did not suffer the time to be lost with regard to the progress of his own preparations.
During this interval a breach, which the characters and views of the two men rendered almost inevitable, rose between him and Lysander. The rumour of the expedition, and of the part which Lysander was to take in it, seems to have rekindled the flames of discord in the Asiatic cities, which after the expulsion of his creatures had for a time been kept tranquil by the wise forbearance of the ephors and the prudent administration of Dercyllidas. When he came to Ephesus, his door was immediately besieged by a crowd of petitioners, who desired a license to oppress their countrymen under his patronage. After the victory of Ægospotami, Lysander, as the man who for the time wielded the irresistible power of Sparta, had been courted with extravagant servility by the Asiatic Greeks. They did not content themselves with the ordinary honours of golden crowns and statues, but raised altars and offered sacrifices, and sang pæans, and consecrated festivals to him as a god: the first example of that grossest kind of adulation, which afterwards became common among the Greeks, and was reduced to a system by the Romans. When he now appeared again in Asia, though in the train of a Spartan king, it was still supposed that the substance of power resided with him, and that he would direct the exercise of the royal authority, as he thought fit. He did not discountenance this persuasion, for he shared it himself. He had calculated on the subserviency of Agesilaus, whom he considered as mainly indebted to his friendship, first for the throne, and then—an obligation little inferior—for the command in Asia. But his colleagues, the rest of the Thirty, felt that the homage paid to him by the allies was derogatory, not only to the royal dignity, but to their own; and they complained to Agesilaus of his presumption.
Prows of Greek Galleys
The king himself had been hurt by it, and resolved to check it, not by a friendly remonstrance, but in a way the most grating to Lysander’s feelings. He rejected all applications which were made to him in reliance on Lysander’s interest; and his purpose at length became so evident, that Lysander was obliged to inform his clients, that his intercession, instead of furthering, would only obstruct their suits. He had however sufficient self-command to stifle or disguise his resentment; and, after a very mild expostulation with Agesilaus on the harshness of his conduct, requested to be removed from the scene of his humiliation to some other place, where he might still be employed in the public service. The king very willingly complied, and sent him to the Hellespont, where not long after he achieved an acquisition of some moment to the Spartan arms. He prevailed on a Persian of high rank, named Spithridates, who had been offended by Pharnabazus, to revolt, and come with his family, his treasures, and two hundred horse, to Cyzicus, and thence sailed with him and his son to Ephesus, and presented them to Agesilaus, who received them with great pleasure, and took this opportunity of gaining information about the state of Pharnabazus. This incident produced an apparent reconciliation between him and Lysander; but we shall see reason to suspect that on one side, at least, it was not sincere.
Tissaphernes had no sooner received such an addition to his forces, as appeared to him sufficient to overpower Agesilaus, than he threw aside the mask, and sent a message to the Spartan king, bidding him immediately quit Asia, or prepare for war. The council and the allies were somewhat daunted by his arrogant tone, and apparent strength; but Agesilaus, who had expected this result, and desired no other, told the envoys to carry back his thanks to their master, for the advantage he had given the Greeks by his perjury. He then ordered his troops to put themselves in readiness for a long march; sent word to the towns which lay on the road to Caria to lay in provisions for the use of his army; and called on the cities of Ionia, Æolis, and the Hellespont, for their contingents. Agesilaus had reckoned upon this effect of the satrap’s selfish fears, and, instead of seeking him in Caria, marched in the opposite direction toward the residence of Pharnabazus. As this invasion was quite unexpected, he found the towns on his road unprepared for resistance, and collected an immense booty. He penetrated nearly to Dascylium without encountering an enemy. But in that neighbourhood he fell in with a body of Persian horse, and, by the issue of a skirmish which ensued, was made to feel its superiority in equipments and training over his own. The next day when he sacrificed, observes Xenophon—as if he was relating a providential warning, not a human contrivance—the victims were found imperfect; and Agesilaus advanced no farther, but retreated towards Ephesus.
[396-395 B.C.]
There he spent the winter in preparations for the next campaign, and more particularly applied himself to the raising of a body of cavalry, which he perceived would be indispensable to the success and the safety of his future operations. For this purpose he made a list of the most opulent men in the Greek cities, and compelled each of them, as the condition of his exemption from personal service, to furnish a trooper. In the spring he collected his forces at Ephesus, and put them into an active course of training, rousing their emulation by the prizes which he proposed for the most gallant show, and the highest degree of expertness, in every department of the service. Xenophon, as an old soldier, is delighted with the recollection of the military bustle which prevailed during this season at Ephesus; where the wrestling schools and the hippodrome were constantly enlivened by the exercises of the men, the market was abundantly supplied with horses, and arms of every kind, and all the trades subservient to war were kept in full employment. Among other devices for raising the spirits of his troops, Agesilaus borrowed a hint, it would seem, from one of Cimon’s stratagems, and ordered his Persian prisoners to be exposed to sale naked, that the Greeks might contrast the delicacy of their persons with the robustness of frames hardened by the exercises of the palæstra.