Lysander

The only course left, therefore, was to go to the doors of the King’s generals, as Lysander had done, and ask for money. For this he was of all men least fitted by nature, being of a free and lofty spirit, and one who thought any and every defeat of Greeks at the hands of Greeks more becoming to them than visits of flattery to the houses of Barbarians, who had much gold, but nothing else worth while.

Constrained, however, by his necessities, he went up into Lydia, proceeded at once to the house of Cyrus, and ordered word to be sent in that Callicratidas the admiral was come and wished to confer with him. And when one of the door-keepers said to him: But Cyrus is not at leisure now, Stranger, for he is at his wine; Callicratidas replied with the utmost simplicity: No matter, I will stand here and wait till he has had his wine.

This time, then, he merely withdrew, after being taken for a rustic fellow and laughed at by the Barbarians. But when he was come a second time to the door and was refused admittance, he was indignant, and set off for Ephesus, invoking many evils upon those who first submitted to the mockery of the Barbarians and taught them to be insolent because of their wealth,

and swearing roundly to the bystanders that as soon as he got back to Sparta, he would do all he could to reconcile the Greeks with one another, in order that they might themselves strike fear into the Barbarians, and cease soliciting their power against each other.