Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (118 page)

At the first sign of spring he collected the whole of his forces at Ephesus. With a view to their training he offered prizes for the cavalry squadron that rode best, and for the company of heavy infantry that reached the highest level of physical fitness. He also offered prizes to the targeteers and the archers who showed the greatest efficiency in their particular duties. Thereupon one might see every gymnasium crowded with the men exercising, the racecourse thronged with cavalrymen riding, and the javelin-men and archers shooting at the mark.
[26]
Indeed he made the whole city in which he was quartered a sight to see. For the market was full of arms and horses of all sorts on sale, and the coppersmiths, carpenters, workers in iron, cobblers, and painters were all busy making weapons of war, so that you might have thought that the city was really a war factory.
[27]
And an inspiring sight it would have been to watch Agesilaus and all his soldiers behind him returning garlanded from the gymnasium and dedicating their garlands to Artemis. For where men reverence the gods, train themselves in warfare and practise obedience, there you surely find high hopes abounding.
[28]
Moreover, believing that contempt for the enemy would kindle the fighting spirit, he gave instructions to his heralds that the barbarians captured in the raids should be exposed for sale naked. So when his soldiers saw them white because they never stripped, and fat and lazy through constant riding in carriages, they believed that the war would be exactly like fighting with women.

He also gave notice to the troops that he would immediately lead them by the shortest route to the most fertile parts of the country, so that he might at once find them preparing themselves in body and mind for the coming struggle.
[29]
Tissaphernes, however, believed that in saying this he meant to deceive him again, and that now he would really invade Caria. Accordingly he sent his infantry across into Caria as before, and stationed his cavalry in the plain of the Maeander. But Agesilaus did not play false: in accordance with his notice he marched straight to the neighbourhood of Sardis; and for three days his route lay through a country bare of enemies, so that he supplied his army with abundance of provisions.
[30]
On the fourth day the enemy’s cavalry came up. Their leader told the officer in command of the baggage-train to cross the river Pactolus and encamp. The cavalry, meantime, catching sight of the Greek camp-followers plundering in scattered bands, killed a large number of them. On noticing this, Agesilaus ordered his cavalry to go to their help. The Persians in turn, seeing the supports coming, gathered in a mass and confronted them with the full strength of their horse.
[31]
Then Agesilaus, realising that the enemy’s infantry was not yet up, while he had all his resources on the spot, thought the moment was come to join battle if he could. Therefore, after offering sacrifice, he led forward the battle line immediately against the opposing cavalry, the heavy infantrymen of ten years service having orders to run to close quarters with the enemy, while the targeteers were to lead the advance at the double. He also sent word to the cavalry to attack in the knowledge that he himself was following with the whole army.
[32]
The charge of the cavalry was met by the flower of the Persians: but as soon as the full weight of the attack fell on them, they swayed, and some were cut down immediately in the river, while the rest fled. The Greeks followed up their success and captured their camp. The targeteers naturally fell to pillaging; but Agesilaus drew the lines of his camp round so as to enclose the property of all, friends and foes alike.
[33]

On hearing that there was confusion among the enemy, because everyone put the blame for what had happened on his neighbour, he advanced forthwith on Sardis. There he began burning and pillaging the suburbs, and meantime issued a proclamation calling on those who wanted freedom to join his standard, and challenging any who claimed a right to Asia to seek a decision between themselves and the liberators by an appeal to arms.
[34]
As no one came out to oppose him, he prosecuted the campaign henceforward in complete confidence: he beheld the Greeks, compelled erstwhile to cringe, now honoured by their oppressors; caused those who arrogantly claimed for themselves the honours paid to the gods to shrink even from looking the Greeks in the face; rendered the country of his friends inviolate, and stripped the enemy’s country so thoroughly that in two years he consecrated to the god at Delphi more than two hundred talents as tithe.
[35]

But the Persian king, believing that Tissaphernes was responsible for the bad turn in his affairs, sent down Tithraustes and beheaded Tissaphernes. After this the outlook became still more hopeless for the barbarians, while Agesilaus received large accessions of strength. For all the nations of the empire sent embassies seeking his friendship, and the desire for freedom caused many to revolt to him, so that not Greeks alone, but many barbarians also now acknowledged the leadership of Agesilaus.
[36]

His conduct at this juncture also merits unstinted admiration. Though ruler of countless cities on the mainland, and master of islands — for the state had now added the fleet to his command — becoming daily more famous and more powerful; placed in a position to make what use he would of his many opportunities; and designing and expecting to crown his achievements by dissolving the empire that had attacked Greece in the past: he suppressed all thought of these things, and as soon as he received a request from the home government to come to the aid of his fatherland, he obeyed the call of the state, just as though he were standing in the Ephor’s palace alone before the Five, thus showing clearly that he would not take the whole earth in exchange for his fatherland, nor new-found friends for old, and that he scorned to choose base and secure gains rather than that which was right and honourable, even though it was dangerous.
[37]

Throughout the time that he remained in his command, another achievement of his showed beyond question how admirable was his skill in kingcraft. Having found all the cities that he had gone out to govern rent by faction in consequence of the political disturbances that followed on the collapse of the Athenian empire, he brought it about by the influence of his presence that the communities lived in unbroken harmony and prosperity without recourse to banishment or executions.
[38]
Therefore the Greeks in Asia mourned his departure as though they were bidding farewell not merely to a ruler, but to a father or a comrade. And at the end they showed that their affection was unfeigned. At any rate they went with him voluntarily to aid Sparta, knowing as they did that they must meet an enemy not inferior to themselves. This then was the end of his activities in Asia.

2.
After crossing the Hellespont, he passed through the very same tribes as the Persian king with his mighty host; and the distance that had been traversed by the barbarian in a year was covered by Agesilaus in less than a month. For he had no intention of arriving too late to aid his fatherland.
[2]
When he had passed through Macedonia and reached Thessaly, the people of Larisa, Crannon, Scotussa and Pharsalus, who were allies of the Boeotians, all the Thessalians, in fact, except those who happened to be in exile at the time, followed at his heels and kept molesting him. For a time he led the army in a hollow square, with one half of the cavalry in front and the other half in the rear; but finding his progress hampered by Thessalian attacks on his rearguard, he sent round all the cavalry from the vanguard to the rear, except his own escort.
[3]
When the two forces faced one another in line of battle, the Thessalians, believing it inexpedient to engage heavy infantry with cavalry, wheeled round and slowly retired, their enemy following very cautiously. Agesilaus, noticing the errors into which both sides were falling, now sent round his own escort of stalwart horsemen, with orders to bid the others to charge at full speed, and to do the same themselves, and not to give the enemy a chance of rallying. As for the Thessalians, on seeing the unexpected charge they either did not rally at all, or were captured in the attempt to do so with their horses broadside to the enemy.
[4]
Polycharmus the Pharsalian, commander of the cavalry, did indeed turn, and fell fighting along with those about him. Hereupon ensued a wild flight, so that some of the enemy were killed and some were taken prisoners: at any rate they never halted until they reached Mt. Narthacium.
[5]
On that day Agesilaus set up a trophy between Pras and Narthacium, and here for the moment he paused, mightily pleased with his exploit, since he had defeated an enemy inordinately proud of his horsemanship with the cavalry that he had himself created.

On the morrow he crossed the Achaean mountains in Phthia, and now his route led him through friendly country till he reached the borders of Boeotia.
[6]
Here he found arrayed against him the Thebans, Athenians, Argives, Corinthians, Aenianians, Euboeans, and both the Locrian tribes. Without a moment’s delay, in full view of the enemy, he drew up his army for battle. In addition to the army that he had brought with him he had a regiment and a half of Lacedaemonians, and of the local allies only the Phocians and Orchomenians.
[7]
Now I am not going to say that his forces were far inferior in numbers and in quality, and that nevertheless he accepted battle. That statement, I think, would but show a want of common sense in Agesilaus and my own folly in praising a leader who wantonly jeopardised interests of vital moment. On the contrary — and this is what I do admire him for — he brought into the field an army not a whit inferior to the enemy’s; he so armed it that it looked one solid mass of bronze and scarlet; he took care to render his men
[8]
capable of meeting all calls on their endurance; he filled their hearts with confidence that they were able to withstand any and every enemy; he inspired them all with an eager determination to out-do one another in valour; and lastly he filled all with anticipation that many good things would befall them, if only they proved good men. For he believed that men so prepared fight with all their might; nor in point of fact did he deceive himself.
[9]

I will describe the battle, for there has been none like it in our time. The two armies met in the plain of Coronea, Agesilaus advancing from the Cephisus, the Thebans and their allies from Helicon. Their eyes told them that the opposing lines of battle were exactly matched in strength, and the number of cavalry on both sides was about the same. Agesilaus was on the right wing of his army and had the Orchomenians on his extreme left. On the other side the Thebans themselves were on the right wing and the Argives held the left.
[10]
As they approached both sides for a time maintained complete silence, but when they were about a furlong apart, the Thebans raised the battle-cry and rushed forward at the double. The distance between them was still about one hundred yards when the mercenary troops under Herippidas, consisting of the
[11]
men who had gone with Agesilaus from home and some of the Cyreians, dashed out in turn from their main body, closely followed by Ionians, Aeolians and Hellespontines. All these took part in the dash, and coming within spear-thrust put to flight the force in front of them. As for the Argives, they fled towards Helicon without awaiting the attack of Agesilaus. And now some of the mercenaries were in the act of crowning Agesilaus with a wreath, when a man reported to him that the Thebans had cut their way through the Orchomenians and were among the baggage train. So he immediately wheeled his main body and advanced against them; and the Thebans in their turn, seeing that their allies had sought refuge at the foot of Mt. Helicon, and wanting to break through and join their friends, made a strong move forward.
[12]

At this juncture one may say without fear of contradiction that Agesilaus showed courage; but the course that he adopted was not the safest. For he might have allowed the men who were trying to break through to pass, and then have followed them and annihilated those in the rear. Instead of doing that he made a furious frontal attack on the Thebans. Thrusting shield against shield, they shoved and fought and killed and fell. There was no shouting, nor was there silence, but the strange noise that wrath and battle together will produce. In the end some of the Thebans broke through and reached Helicon, but many fell during the retreat.
[13]

The victory lay with Agesilaus; but he himself had been carried wounded to his battle-line, when some horsemen rode up, and told him that eighty of the enemy retaining their arms had taken cover in the temple, and they asked what they should do. Though wounded in every part of his body with every sort of weapon, he did not forget his duty towards the gods, but gave orders that these men should be suffered to go whithersoever they wished, and would not suffer them to be harmed, and charged his escort of cavalry to conduct them to a place of safety.
[14]

Now that the fighting was at an end, a weird spectacle met the eye, as one surveyed the scene of the conflict — the earth stained with blood, friend and foe lying dead side by side, shields smashed to pieces, spears snapped in two, daggers bared of their sheaths, some on the ground, some embedded in the bodies, some yet gripped by the hand.
[15]
Then, as the day was far spent, having dragged the enemy’s dead within their battle line, they supped and slept. Early next morning Agesilaus ordered Gylis, the polemarch, to draw up the army in battle order and to set up a trophy, and to command every man to wear a wreath in honour of the god and all the flute-players to play.
[16]

Now while they were carrying out these orders the Thebans sent a herald, asking leave to bury their dead under protection of a truce. And so a truce was made, and Agesilaus left for home, choosing, instead of supreme power in Asia, to rule and to be ruled at home according to the constitution.
[17]