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for his innocence; if he be, acquit him for my sake; but, however it be, acquit him."

It is understanding the rights and privileges of friendship very ill, to be capable of rendering it in this manner the accomplice of crimes, and the protectress of bad actions. It is the fundamental law of friendship, says Cicero," never to ask of, or grant any thing to friends, that does not consist with justice and honour: Hæc prima lex in amicitia fanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec faciamus rogati.

Agesilaus was not so delicate in this point, at least in the beginning, and omitted no occasion of gratifying his friends, and even his enemies. By this officious and obliging conduct, supported by his extraordinary merit, he acquired great credit, and almost absolute power in the city, which ran so high as to render him suspected by his country. The Ephori, to prevent its effects, and give a check to his ambition, laid a fine upon him; alleging as their sole reason, that he attached the hearts of the citizens to himself alone, which were the right of the republic, and ought not to be possessed but in common.

When he was declared king, he was put into possession of the whole estate of his brother Agis, of which Leotychides was deprived as a bastard. But seeing the relations of that prince, on the side of his mother Lampito, were all very poor, he divided the whole inheritance with them, and by that act of generosity acquired great reputation, and the good will of all the world, instead of the envy and hatred he might have drawn upon himself by the inheritance.

De amicit. n. 40.

• Ότι τους κοινους πολίτας, ιδιους κλατας.

These sort of sacrifices are glorious, though rare, and can never be sufficiently esteemed.

Never was a king of Sparta so powerful as Agesilaus, and it was only, as Xenophon says, by obeying his country in every thing, that he acquired so great an authority; which seems a kind of paradox, thus explained by Plutarch. The greatest power was vested at that time in the Ephori and senate. The office of the Ephori subsisted only one year; they were instituted to limit the too great power of the kings, and to serve as a barrier against it, as we have observed elsewhere. For this reason the kings of Sparta, from their establishment, had always retained a kind of hereditary aversion for them, and continually opposed their measures. Agesilaus took a quite contrary method. Instead of being perpetually at war with them, and clashing upon all occasions with their measures, he made it his business to cultivate their good opinion, treated them always with the utmost deference and regard, never entered upon the least enterprise without having first communicated it to them, and upon their summons quitted every thing, and repaired to the senate with the utmost promptitude and resignation. Whenever he sat upon his throne to administer justice, if the Ephori entered, he never failed to rise up to do them honour. By all these instances of respect, he seemed to add new dignity to their office, whilst in reality he augmented his own power, without its being observed, and added to the sovereignty a grandeur the more solid and permanent, as it was the effect of the people's good will and esteem for him. The greatest of the Roman em

perors, as Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were convinced, that the utmost a prince could do, to honour and exalt the principal magistrates, was only adding to his own power and strengthening his author. ity, which neither should, nor can be founded in any thing but justice.

Such was Agesilaus of whom much will be said hereafter, and with whose character it was therefore necessary to begin.

SECTION II.

AGESILAUS GOES TO ASIA.

LYSANDER FALLS OUT WITH .

HIM.

AGESILAUS had scarce ascended the throne, when accounts came from Asia, that the king of Persia was fitting out a great fleet with intent to deprive the Lacedemonians of their empire at sea. Conon's letters, seconded by the remonstrances of Pharnabasus, who had in concert represented to Artaxerxes the power of Sparta as formidable, had made a strong impression upon that prince. From that time he had it seriously in his thoughts to humble that proud republic, by raising up its rival, and by that means reestablishing the ancient balance between them, which could alone assure his safety, by keeping them perpetually employed against each other, and thereby prevented from uniting their forces against him.

PA. M. 3608. Ant. J. C. 396. Xenoph. Hist. Græc. 1. iii. p. 495, 496. Ibid. de Agesil. p. 652. Plut, in Agesil. p. 598, et in Lysand P. 446.

Lysander, who desired to be sent into Asia, in order to reestablish his creatures and friends in the government of the cities, from which Sparta had removed them, strongly disposed Agesilaus to take upon himself the charge of the war, and to prevent the barbarian king, by attacking him remote from Greece, before he should have finished his preparations. The republic having made this proposal to him, he could not refuse it, and charged himself with the epedition against Artaxerxes, upon condition that thirty Spartan captains should be granted him, to assist him and compose his council, with two thousand new citizens to be chosen out of the helots who had been lately made freemen, and six thousand troops of the allies, which was immediately resolved. Lysander was placed at the head of the thirty Spartans, not only upon account of his great reputation, and the authority he had acquired, but for the particular friendship between him and Agesilaus, who was indebted to him for the throne, as well as the honour which had been lately conferred upon him of being elected generalis

simo.

The glorious return of the Greeks who had followed Cyrus, and whom the whole power of Persia was not able to prevent from retreating into their own country, had inspired all Greece with a wonderful confidence in their forces, and a supreme contempt for the barbarians. In this disposition of the people, the Lacedemonians conceived it would reproach them, to neglect so favourable a conjuncture for delivering the Greeks in Asia from their subjection to those barbarians, and for putting an end to the outrages and

violences with which they were continually oppressing them. They had already attempted this by their generals Thimbron and Dercyllidas; but all their endeavours having hitherto proved ineffectual, they referred the conduct of this war to the care of Agesi laus. He promised them either to conclude a glorious peace with the Persians, or to employ them so effectually, as should leave them neither leisure nor inclination to carry the war into Greece. The king had great views, and thought of nothing less than attacking Artaxerxes in Persia itself.

When he arrived at Ephesus, Tissaphernes sent to demand what reason had induced his coming into Asia, and why he had taken up arms. He replied, that he came to aid the Greeks who inhabited there, and to reestablish them in their ancient liberty.

The satrap, who was not yet prepared, preferred art to force, and assured him that his master would give the Grecian cities of Asia their liberty, provided he committed no acts of hostility till the return of the couriers. Agesilaus agreed, and the truce was sworn on both sides. Tissaphernes, who laid no great stress upon an oath, took the advantage of this delay to assemble troops on all sides. The Lacedemonian general was apprized of it, but however kept his word; being convinced, that in affairs of state the breach of faith can have but a very short and precarious success; whereas a reputation established upon inviolable fidelity in the observance of engagements, which the perfidy itself of other contracting parties has not power to alter, will establish a credit and confidence, equally

Xenoph. p. 496, et 652.

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