While the army was being
assembled at Geraestus, Agesilaus himself proceeded to Aulis with his
friends, and while sleeping there, he appeared in a dream to hear a
voice saying: "O king of the Lacedaemonians, since no one has ever been
commander-in-chief of all the Greeks, save you and Agamemnon alone, it
is fitting that you, since you command the same troops, start from the
same place, and are about to attack the same enemy, should offer
sacrifice to the same goddess to whom he sacrificed here before
setting out." Upon this there, at once, occurred to the mind of
Agesilaus the legend of the maiden who was put to death on that
occasion by her own father, in obedience to the soothsayers; but he
did not allow himself to be disturbed by this omen, but arose and told
the whole dream to his friends, observing that it was his intention to
pay all due honour to the goddess Artemis, but not to imitate the
barbarous conduct of Agamemnon. He now proceeded to hang garlands upon
a hind, and ordered his own soothsayer to offer it as a sacrifice,
disregarding the claims of the local Boeotian priest to do so. The
Boeotarchs, however, heard of this, and were greatly incensed at what
they considered an insult. They at once despatched a body of armed men
to the spot, who forbade Agesilaus to offer sacrifice there, contrary
to the ancestral customs of the Boeotians, and cast off the victim from
the altar where it lay.
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