13.4
At any rate, there is in circulation a letter of his to Hidrieus the Carian, which runs as follows: As for Nicias, if he is innocent, acquit him; if he is guilty, acquit him for my sake; but in any case acquit him. Such, then, was Agesilaüs in most cases where the interests of his friends were concerned; but sometimes he used a critical situation rather for his own advantage. Of this he gave an instance when, as he was decamping in some haste and confusion, he left his favourite behind him sick. The sick one besought him loudly as he was departing, but he merely turned and said that it was hard to be compassionate and at the same time prudent. This story is related by Hieronymus the philosopher.
14.1
Agesilaüs had now been nearly two years in the field, and much was said about him in the interior parts of Asia, and a wonderful opinion of his self-restraint, of his simplicity of life, and of his moderation, everywhere prevailed. For when he made a journey, he would take up his quarters in the most sacred precincts by himself,Cf. Xenophon’s Agesilaüs, v. 7. thus making the gods overseers and witnesses of those acts which few men are permitted to see us perform; and among so many thousands of soldiers, one could hardly find a meaner couch than that of Agesilaüs;
14.2
while to heat and cold he was as indifferent as if nature had given him alone the power to adapt himself to the seasons as God has tempered them. And it was most pleasing to the Greeks who dwelt in Asia to see the Persian viceroys and generals, who had long been insufferably cruel, and had revelled in wealth and luxury, now fearful and obsequious before a man who went about in a paltry cloak, and at one brief and laconic speech from him conforming themselves to his ways and changing their dress and mien, insomuch that many were moved to cite the words of Timotheus:— Ares is Lord; of gold Greece hath no fear. Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graeci, iii.4 p. 622.
