Agesilaus
By Xenophon
()
About this ebook
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens was an ancient Greek historian, philosopher, and soldier. He became commander of the Ten Thousand at about age thirty. Noted military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge said of him, “The centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior.”
Read more from Xenophon
Anabasis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memorabilia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The March of the Ten Thousand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Education of Cyrus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of Peloponnesian War: According to Contemporary Historians Thucydides and Xenophon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnabasis (The Persian Expedition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anabasis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hellenica (A History of My Times) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On Horsemanship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of Horsemanship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Persian Expedition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Historical Works of Xenophon: Anabasis, Cyropaedia, Hellenica, Agesilaus, Polity of the Athenians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Memorabilia Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The March of the Ten Thousand: Being A Translation of The Anabasis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCyropaedia: The Wisdom of Cyrus the Great Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Economist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anabasis of Cyrus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works: Anabasis, Cyropaedia, Hellenica, Agesilaus, Defense of Socrates, The Polity of the Athenians… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shorter Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn Horsemanship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life and Legacy of Socrates: Xenophon's Memoires of Socrates and His Teachings: Memorabilia, Apology, The Economist, Symposium… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Agesilaus
Related ebooks
Agesilaus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Xenophon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnabasis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Historical Works of Xenophon: Anabasis, Cyropaedia, Hellenica, Agesilaus, Polity of the Athenians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe retreat of the ten thousand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnabasis (The Persian Expedition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Xenophon: Historical Works: Anabasis, Cyropaedia, Hellenica, Agesilaus, Polity of the Athenians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsXenophon: Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnabasis: The March of the Ten Thousand: The Persian Expedition of Cyrus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 11: Titus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnabasis: The Persian Expedition of Cyrus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsParallel Lives: Volume 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiography of Ramesses III Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works: Anabasis, Cyropaedia, Hellenica, Agesilaus, Defense of Socrates, The Polity of the Athenians… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Histories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLives of Eminent Commanders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutnumbered: Incredible Stories of History's Most Surprising Battlefield Upsets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe March of the Ten Thousand: Being A Translation of The Anabasis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cambridge Medieval History - Book XIV: The Eastern Roman Empire from Leo III to the Macedonian Dynasty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the British Army Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplete Works of Demosthenes (Delphi Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar in Ancient Greece Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Persian Expedition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Histories of Tacitus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Histories Book 7: Polymnia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 12: Domitian Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
History For You
Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ZERO Percent: Secrets of the United States, the Power of Trust, Nationality, Banking and ZERO TAXES! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know: Secrets, Conspiracies, Cover Ups, and Absurdities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wise as Fu*k: Simple Truths to Guide You Through the Sh*tstorms of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lessons of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Richest Man in Babylon: The most inspiring book on wealth ever written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Grief Observed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Agesilaus
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Agesilaus - Xenophon
Xenophon
Agesilaus
Published by Good Press, 2022
goodpress@okpublishing.info
EAN 4057664644930
Table of Contents
An Encomium
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
An Encomium
Table of Contents
The date of Agesilaus's death is uncertain—360 B.C. (Grote,
H. G.
ix. 336); 358 B.C. (Curt. iv. 196, Eng. tr.)
I
Table of Contents
To write the praises of Agesilaus in language equalling his virtue and renown is, I know, no easy task; yet must it be essayed; since it were but an ill requital of pre-eminence, that, on the ground of his perfection, a good man should forfeit the tribute even of imperfect praise.
As touching, therefore, the excellency of his birth, what weightier, what nobler testimony can be adduced than this one fact? To the commemorative list of famous ancestry is added to-day the name (1) Agesilaus as holding this or that numerical descent from Heracles, and these ancestors no private persons, but kings sprung from the loins of kings. Nor is it open to the gainsayer to contend that they were kings indeed but of some chance city. Not so, but even as their family holds highest honour in their fatherland, so too is their city the most glorious in Hellas, whereby they hold, not primacy over the second best, but among leaders they have leadership.
(1) Or, "even to-day, in the proud bead-roll of his ancestry he stands
commemorated, in numerical descent from Heracles."
And herein it is open to us to praise both his fatherland and his family. It is notable that never throughout these ages has Lacedaemon, out of envy of the privilege accorded to her kings, tried to dissolve their rule; nor ever yet throughout these ages have her kings strained after greater powers than those which limited their heritage of kingship from the first. Wherefore, while all other forms of government, democracies and oligarchies, tyrannies and monarchies, alike have failed to maintain their continuity unbroken, here, as the sole exception, endures indissolubly their kingship. (2)
(2) See Cyrop.
I. i. 1.
And next in token of an aptitude for kingship seen in Agesilaus, before even he entered upon office, I note these signs. On the death of Agis, king of Lacedaemon, there were rival claimants to the throne. Leotychides claimed the succession as being the son of Agis, and Agesilaus as the son of Archidamus. But the verdict of Lacedaemon favoured Agesilaus as being in point of family and virtue unimpeachable, (3) and so they set him on the throne. And yet, in this princeliest of cities so to be selected by the noblest citizens as worthy of highest privilege, argues, methinks conclusively, an excellence forerunning exercise of rule. (4)
(3) For this matter see Hell.
III. iii. 1-6; V. iv. 13; Plut.
Ages.
iii. 3 (Cloigh, iv. 3 foll.); Paus. iii. 3.
(4) See Aristides (Rhet.
776), who quotes the passage for its
measured cadence.
And so I pass on at once to narrate the chief achievements of his reign, since by the light of deeds the character of him who wrought them will, if I mistake not, best shine forth.
Agesilaus was still a youth (5) when he obtained the kingdom, and he was still but a novice in his office when the news came that the king of Persia was collecting a mighty armament by sea and land for the invasion of Hellas. The Lacedaemonians and their allies sat debating these matters, when Agesilaus undertook to cross over into Asia. He only asked for thirty Spartans and two thousand New Citizens, (6) besides a contingent of the allies six thousand strong; with these he would cross over into Asia and endeavour to effect a peace; or, if the barbarian preferred war, he would leave him little leisure to invade Hellas.