Note 427 — Chapter LXXIII · AGESILAUS KING OF SPARTA. — THE CORINTHIAN WAR.

Tacit. Histor. i, 10. “Cui expeditius fuerit tradere imperium, quam obtinere.”

The general fact of the conspiracy of Lysander to open for himself a way to the throne, appears to rest on very sufficient testimony,—that of Ephorus; to whom perhaps the words φασί τινες in Aristotle may allude, where he mentions this conspiracy as having been narrated (Polit. v, 1, 5). But Plutarch, as well as K. O. Müller (Hist. of Dorians, iv, 9, 5) and others, erroneously represent the intrigues with the oracle as being resorted to after Lysander returned from accompanying Agesilaus to Asia; which is certainly impossible, since Lysander accompanied Agesilaus out, in the spring of 396 B.C.—did not return to Greece until the spring of 395 B.C.—and was then employed, with an interval not greater than four or five months, on that expedition against Bœotia wherein he was slain.

The tampering of Lysander with the oracle must undoubtedly have taken place prior to the death of Agis,—at some time between 403 B.C. and 399 B.C. The humiliation which he received in 396 B.C. from Agesilaus might indeed have led him to revolve in his mind the renewal of his former plans; but he can have had no time to do anything towards them. Aristotle (Polit. v, 6, 2) alludes to the humiliation of Lysander by the kings as an example of incidents tending to raise disturbance in an aristocratical government; but this humiliation, probably, alludes to the manner in which he was thwarted in Attica by Pausanias in 403 B.C.—which proceeding is ascribed by Plutarch to both kings, as well as to their jealousy of Lysander (see Plutarch, Lysand. c. 21)—not to the treatment of Lysander by Agesilaus in 396 B.C. The mission of Lysander to the despot Dionysius at Syracuse (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 2) must also have taken place prior to the death of Agis in 399 B.C.; whether before or after the failure of the stratagem at Delphi, is uncertain; perhaps after it.