



Produced by John Bickers





AGESILAUS

By Xenophon

Translation by H. G. Dakyns




     Dedicated To
     Rev. B. Jowett, M.A.
     Master of Balliol College
     Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford



     Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
     pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
     and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
     and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
     years before having to move once more, to settle
     in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.

     The Agesilaus summarises the life of his Spartan
     friend and king, whom he met after the events of
     the Anabasis.





PREPARER'S NOTE

     This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
     four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
     there is doubt about some of these) is:

     Work                                   Number of books

     The Anabasis                                         7
     The Hellenica                                        7
     The Cyropaedia                                       8
     The Memorabilia                                      4
     The Symposium                                        1
     The Economist                                        1
     On Horsemanship                                      1
     The Sportsman                                        1
     The Cavalry General                                  1
     The Apology                                          1
     On Revenues                                          1
     The Hiero                                            1
     The Agesilaus                                        1
     The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians   2

     Text in brackets "{}" is my transliteration of Greek text into
     English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. The
     diacritical marks have been lost.





AGESILAUS




An Encomium

     The date of Agesilaus's death is uncertain--360 B.C. (Grote,
     "H. G." ix. 336); 358 B.C. (Curt. iv. 196, Eng. tr.)




I

To write the praises of Agesilaus in language equalling his virtue and
renown is, I know, no easy task; yet must it be essayed; since it were
but an ill requital of pre-eminence, that, on the ground of his
perfection, a good man should forfeit the tribute even of imperfect
praise.

As touching, therefore, the excellency of his birth, what weightier,
what nobler testimony can be adduced than this one fact? To the
commemorative list of famous ancestry is added to-day the name (1)
Agesilaus as holding this or that numerical descent from Heracles, and
these ancestors no private persons, but kings sprung from the loins of
kings. Nor is it open to the gainsayer to contend that they were kings
indeed but of some chance city. Not so, but even as their family holds
highest honour in their fatherland, so too is their city the most
glorious in Hellas, whereby they hold, not primacy over the second
best, but among leaders they have leadership.

 (1) Or, "even to-day, in the proud bead-roll of his ancestry he stands
    commemorated, in numerical descent from Heracles."

And herein it is open to us to praise both his fatherland and his
family. It is notable that never throughout these ages has Lacedaemon,
out of envy of the privilege accorded to her kings, tried to dissolve
their rule; nor ever yet throughout these ages have her kings strained
after greater powers than those which limited their heritage of
kingship from the first. Wherefore, while all other forms of
government, democracies and oligarchies, tyrannies and monarchies,
alike have failed to maintain their continuity unbroken, here, as the
sole exception, endures indissolubly their kingship. (2)

 (2) See "Cyrop." I. i. 1.

And next in token of an aptitude for kingship seen in Agesilaus,
before even he entered upon office, I note these signs. On the death
of Agis, king of Lacedaemon, there were rival claimants to the throne.
Leotychides claimed the succession as being the son of Agis, and
Agesilaus as the son of Archidamus. But the verdict of Lacedaemon
favoured Agesilaus as being in point of family and virtue
unimpeachable, (3) and so they set him on the throne. And yet, in this
princeliest of cities so to be selected by the noblest citizens as
worthy of highest privilege, argues, methinks conclusively, an
excellence forerunning exercise of rule. (4)

 (3) For this matter see "Hell." III. iii. 1-6; V. iv. 13; Plut.
    "Ages." iii. 3  (Cloigh, iv. 3 foll.); Paus. iii. 3.

 (4) See Aristides  ("Rhet." 776), who quotes the passage for its
   