Agesilaus

I certainly cannot agree with Demaratus the Corinthian, who said that those Greeks had missed a great pleasure who did not behold Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius, nay, I think that such might well have shed tears when they reflected that this triumph was left for Alexander and Macedonians by those who now squandered the lives of Greek generals on the fields of Leuctra, Coroneia, and Corinth, and in Arcadia.

Agesilaüs, however, never performed a nobler or a greater deed than in returning home as he now did, nor was there ever a fairer example of righteous obedience to authority. For Hannibal, though he was already in an evil plight and on the point of being driven out of Italy, could with the greatest difficulty bring himself to obey his summons to the war at home; and Alexander actually went so far as to jest when he heard of Antipater’s battle with Agis,[*](At Megalopolis, in Arcadia, 331 B.C., Agis fell fighting, and the Spartan rebellion at once collapsed. Alexander had not the slightest thought of returning home to help Antipater.) saying: It would seem, my men, that while we were conquering Dareius here, there has been a battle of mice there in Arcadia.

Why, then, should we not call Sparta happy in the honour paid to her by Agesilaüs, and in his deference to her laws? No sooner had the dispatch-roll come to him than he renounced and abandoned the great good fortune and power already in his grasp, and the great hopes which beckoned him on, and at once sailed off

with task all unfulfilled,