But to this one cannot altogether agree; for party
strife, if carried to excess, proves most dangerous and ruinous to all
communities.
VI. Shortly after Agesilaus had been raised to the throne he received
news from Asia that the Persian king was preparing a large army with
which he intended to drive the Lacedaemonians into the sea. Upon
hearing this, Lysander was very eager to be sent out again to conduct
affairs in Asia, in order that he might be able to assist his own
friends and partizans, whom he had appointed as governors to many of
the cities in that country, but who had mostly been forcibly expelled
by the citizens for their insolent and tyrannical conduct. He
therefore urged Agesilaus to undertake a campaign in Asia as the
champion of Greece, and advised him to land upon some distant part of
the coast, so as to establish himself securely before the arrival of
the Persian army. At the same time he despatched instructions to his
friends in Asia, to send to Lacedaemon, and demand Agesilaus as their
general. In a public debate upon the subject, Agesilaus agreed to
conduct the war if he were furnished with thirty Spartans to act as
generals, and to form a council of war. He also demanded a force of
ten thousand picked men of the Neodamodes, or enfranchised Helots, and
six thousand hoplites, or heavy armed troops, from the allied cities
in Greece. By the active co-operation of Lysander all this was quickly
agreed upon, and Agesilaus was sent out with a council of thirty
Spartans, in which Lysander at once took the lead, not merely by his
own great name and influence, but by reason of his intimacy with
Agesilaus, through which it was supposed that this campaign would
raise him to more than kingly power.
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