Note 524 — Chapter LXXIII · AGESILAUS KING OF SPARTA. — THE CORINTHIAN WAR.

The measures of Konon and the transactions preceding the battle of Knidus, are very imperfectly known to us; but we may gather them generally from Diodorus, xiv, 81; Justin, vi, 3, 4; Cornelius Nepos, Vit. Conon. c. 2, 3; Ktesiæ Fragment, c. 62, 63, ed. Bähr.

Isokrates (Orat. iv, (Panegyr.) s. 165; compare Orat. ix, (Euagor.) s. 77) speaks loosely as to the duration of time that the Persian fleet remained blocked up by the Lacedæmonians before Konon obtained his final and vigorous orders from Artaxerxes, unless we are to understand his three years as referring to the first news of outfit of ships of war in Phœnicia, brought to Sparta by Herodas, as Schneider understands them; and even then the statement that the Persian fleet remained πολιορκούμενον for all this time, would be much exaggerated. Allowing for exaggeration, however, Isokrates coincides generally with the authorities above noticed.

It would appear that Ktesias the physician obtained about this time permission to quit the court of Persia and come back to Greece. Perhaps he may have been induced (like Demokêdes of Kroton, one hundred and twenty years before) to promote the views of Konon in order to get for himself this permission.

In the meagre abstract of Ktesias given by Photius (c. 63) mention is made of some Lacedæmonian envoys who were now going up to the Persian court, and were watched or detained on the way. This mission can hardly have taken place before the battle of Knidus; for then Agesilaus was in the full tide of success, and contemplating the largest plans of aggression against Persia. It must have taken place, I presume, after the battle.