B.C. 397.187 It was after the incidents just recorded that a Syracusan named Herodas brought news to Lacedaemon. He had chanced to be in Phoenicia with a certain shipowner, and was struck by the number of Phoenician triremes which he observed, some coming into harbour from other ports, others already there with their ships’ companies complete, while others again were still completing their equipments. Nor was it only what he saw, but he had heard say further that there were to be three hundred of these vessels all told; whereupon he had taken passage on the first sailing ship bound for Hellas. He was in haste to lay this information before the Lacedaemonians, feeling sure that the king and Tissaphernes were concerned in these preparations — though where the fleet was to act, or against whom, he would not venture to predict.
These reports threw the Lacedaemonians into a flutter of expectation and anxiety. They summoned a meeting of the allies, and began to deliberate as to what ought to be done. Lysander, convinced of the enormous superiority of the Hellenic navy, and with regard to land forces drawing an obvious inference from the exploits and final deliverance of the troops with Cyrus, persuaded Agesilaus, to undertake a campaign into Asia, provided the authorities would furnish him with thirty Spartans, two thousand of the enfranchised,188 and contingents of the allies amounting to six thousand men. Apart from these calculations, Lysander had a personal object: he wished to accompany the king himself, and by his aid to re-establish the decarchies originally set up by himself in the different cities, but at a later date expelled through the action of the ephors, who had issued a fiat re-establishing the old order of constitution.
B.C. 396. To this offer on the part of Agesilaus to undertake such an expedition the Lacedaemonians responded by presenting him with all he asked for, and six months’ provisions besides. When the hour of departure came he offered all such sacrifices as are necessary, and lastly those “before crossing the border,”189 and so set out. This done, he despatched to the several states190 messengers with directions as to the numbers to be sent from each, and the points of rendezvous; but for himself he was minded to go and do sacrifice at Aulis, even as Agamemnon had offered sacrifice in that place ere he set sail for Troy. But when he had reached the place and had begun to sacrifice, the Boeotarchs191 being apprised of his design, sent a body of cavalry and bade him desist from further sacrificing;192 and lighting upon victims already offered, they hurled them from off the altars, scattering the fragments. Then Agesilaus, calling the gods to witness, got on board his trireme in bitter indignation, and sailed away. Arrived at Geraestus, he there collected as large a portion of his troops as possible, and with the armada made sail for Ephesus.
When he had reached that city the first move was made by Tissaphernes, who sent asking, “With what purpose he was come thither?” And the Spartan king made answer: “With the intention that the cities in Asia shall be independent even as are the cities in our quarter of Hellas.” In answer to this Tissaphernes said: “If you on your part choose to make a truce whilst I send ambassadors to the king, I think you may well arrange the matter, and sail back home again, if so you will.” “Willing enough should I be,” replied Agesilaus, “were I not persuaded that you are cheating me.” “Nay, but it is open to you,” replied the satrap, “to exact a surety for the execution of the terms . . . ‘Provided always that you, Tissaphernes, carry out what you say without deceit, we on our side will abstain from injuring your dominion in any respect whatever during the truce.’"193 Accordingly in the presence of three commissioners — Herippidas, Dercylidas, and Megillus — Tissaphernes took an oath in the words prescribed: “Verily and indeed, I will effect peace honestly and without guile.” To which the commissioners, on behalf of Agesilaus, swore a counter-oath: “Verily and indeed, provided Tissaphernes so acts, we on our side will observe the truce.”
Tissaphernes at once gave the lie to what he had sworn. Instead of adhering to peace he sent up to demand a large army from the king, in addition to what he already had. But Agesilaus, though he was fully alive to these proceedings, adhered as rigidly as ever to the truce.
To keep quiet and enjoy leisure was his duty, in the exercise of which he wore away the time at Ephesus. But in reference to the organisation of the several states it was a season of vehement constitutional disturbance in the several cities; that is to say, there were neither democracies as in the old days of the Athenians, nor yet were there decarchies as in the days of Lysander. But here was Lysander back again. Every one recognised him, and flocked to him with petitions for one favour or another, which he was to obtain for them from Agesilaus. A crowd of suitors danced attendance on his heels, and formed so conspicuous a retinue that Agesilaus, any one would have supposed, was the private person and Lysander the king. All this was maddening to Agesilaus, as was presently plain. As to the rest of the Thirty, jealousy did not suffer them to keep silence, and they put it plainly to Agesilaus that the super-regal splendour in which Lysander lived was a violation of the constitution. So when Lysander took upon himself to introduce some of his petitioners to Agesilaus, the latter turned them a deaf ear. Their being aided and abetted by Lysander was sufficient; he sent them away discomfited. At length, as time after time things turned out contrary to his wishes, Lysander himself perceived the position of affairs. He now no longer suffered that crowd to follow him, and gave those who asked him help in anything plainly to understand that they would gain nothing, but rather be losers, by his intervention. But being bitterly annoyed at the degradation put upon him, he came to the king and said to him: “Ah, Agesilaus, how well you know the art of humbling your friends!” “Ay, indeed,” the king replied; “those of them whose one idea it is to appear greater than myself; if I did not know how also to requite with honour those who work for my good, I should be ashamed.” And Lysander said: “maybe there is more reason in your doings than ever guided my conduct;” adding, “Grant me for the rest one favour, so shall I cease to blush at the loss of my influence with you, and you will cease to be embarrassed by my presence. Send me off on a mission somewhere; wherever I am I will strive to be of service to you.” Such was the proposal of Lysander. Agesilaus resolved to act upon it, and despatched Lysander to the Hellespont. And this is what befell.194 Lysander, being made aware of a slight which had been put upon Spithridates the Persian by Pharnabazus, got into conversation with the injured man, and so worked upon him that he was persuaded to bring his children and his personal belongings, and with a couple of hundred troops to revolt. The next step was to deposit all the goods safely in Cyzicus, and the last to get on shipboard with Spithridates and his son, and so to present himself with his Persian friends to Agesilaus. Agesilaus, on his side, was delighted at the transaction, and set himself at once to get information about Pharnabazus, his territory and his government.
Meanwhile Tissaphernes had waxed bolder. A large body of troops had been sent down by the king. On the strength of that he declared war against Agesilaus, if he did not instantly withdraw his troops from Asia. The Lacedaemonians there195 present, no less than the allies, received the news with profound vexation, persuaded as they were that Agesilaus had no force capable of competing with the king’s grand armament. But a smile lit up the face of Agesilaus as he bade the ambassadors return to Tissaphernes and tell him that he was much in his debt for the perjury by which he had won the enmity of Heaven and made the very gods themselves allies of Hellas. He at once issued a general order to the troops to equip themselves for a forward movement. He warned the cities through which he must pass in an advance upon Caria, to have markets in readiness, and lastly, he despatched a message to the Ionian, Aeolian, and Hellespontine communities to send their contingents to join him at Ephesus.
Tissaphernes, putting together the facts that Agesilaus had no cavalry and that Caria was a region unadapted to that arm, and persuaded in his own mind also that the Spartan could not but cherish wrath against himself personally for his chicanery, felt convinced that he was really intending to invade Caria, and that the satrap’s palace was his final goal. Accordingly he transferred the whole of his infantry to that province, and proceeded to lead his cavalry round into the plain of the Maeander. Here he conceived himself capable of trampling the Hellenes under foot with his horsemen before they could reach the craggy districts where no cavalry could operate.
But, instead of marching straight into Caria, Agesilaus turned sharp off in the opposite direction towards Phrygia. Picking up various detachments of troops which met him on his march, he steadily advanced, laying cities prostrate before him, and by the unexpectedness of his attack reaping a golden harvest of spoil. As a rule the march was prosecuted safely; but not far from Dascylium his advanced guard of cavalry were pushing on towards a knoll to take a survery of the st............