Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/331

I DEPARTURE OF EPIKYDIDAS. 309 and was contemplating more extensive schemes of operations against the Persian satrapies hi Asia Minor. He had established such a reputation for military force and skill, that numerous messa- ges reached him from different inland districts, expressing their anxiety to be emancipated from Persian dominion ; and inviting him to come to their aid. His ascendency was also established over the Grecian cities on the coast, whom he still kept under the government of partisan oligarchies and Spartan harmosts, yet seemingly with greater practical moderation, and less license of oppression, than had marked the conduct of these men when they could count upon so unprincipled a chief as Lysander. He was thus just now not only at a high pitch of actual glory and ascend- ency, but nourishing yet brighter hopes of farther conquests for the future. And what filled up the measure of his aspirations, all the conquests were to be made at the expense, not of Greeks, but of the Persians. He was treading in the footsteps of Aga- memnon, as Pan-hellenic leader against a Pan-hellenic enemy. All these glorious dreams were dissipated by Epikydidas, with his sad message, and peremptory summons, from the ephors. In the chagrin and disappointment of Agesilaus we can sincerely sympathize ; but the panegyric which Xenophon and others pro- nounce upon him for his ready obedience is altogether unreasona- ble. 1 There was no merit in renouncing his projects of conquest at the bidding of the ephors ; because, if any serious misfortune had befallen Sparta at home, none of those projects could have been executed. Nor is it out of place to remark, that even if Agesilaus had not been recalled, the extinction of the Lacedae- monian naval superiority by the defeat of Knidus, would have rendered all large plans of inland conquest impracticable. On receiving his orders of recall, he convened an assembly both of his ailies and of his army, to make known the painful necessity of his departure ; which was heard with open and sincere manifestations 1 Xen. Agesil. i, 37 ; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 15. Cornelius Nepos (Agesi- laus, c. 4) almost translates the Agesilaus of Xenophon; but we can better feel the force of his panegyric, when we recollect that he had had personal , cognizance of the disobedience of Julius Ccesar in his province to the orders of the Senate, and that the omnipotence of Sylla and Pompey in their provinces were then matter of recent history. " Cujus exemplum (says Cornelius Nepos about Agesilais) utinam imperatores nostri sequi volui* sent ! "