Agesilaus
by Xenophon
- Pages
- about 50
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 55 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
The date of Agesilaus's death is uncertain--360 B.C. (Grote,
"H. G." ix. 336); 358 B.C. (Curt. iv. 196, Eng. tr.)
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)
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.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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