3.3
Notwithstanding this, after the death of AgisIn 398 B.C., Lysander, who by this time had subdued the Athenians at sea and was a man of the greatest influence in Sparta, tried to advance Agesilaüs to the throne, on the plea that Leotychides was a bastard and had no claim upon it. Many of the other citizens also, owing to the excellence of Agesilaüs and the fact that he had been reared with them under the common restraints of the public training, warmly espoused the plan of Lysander and co-operated with him. But there was a diviner in Sparta, named Diopeithes, who was well supplied with ancient prophecies, and was thought to be eminently wise in religious matters.
3.4
This man declared it contrary to the will of Heaven that a lame man should be king of Sparta, and cited at the trial of the case the following oracle:—Bethink thee now, O Sparta, though thou art very glorious, lest from thee, sound of foot, there spring a maimed royalty; for long will unexpected toils oppress thee, and onward-rolling billows of man-destroying war.
3.5
To this Lysander answered that, in case the Spartans stood in great fear of the oracle, they must be on their guard against Leotychides; for it mattered not to the god that one who halted in his gait should be king, but if one who was not lawfully begotten, nor even a descendant of Heracles, should be king, this was what the god meant by the maimed royalty. And Agesilaüs declared that Poseidon also had borne witness to the bastardy of Leotychides, for he had cast Agis forth from his bed-chamber by an earthquake, and after this more than ten months elapsed before Leotychides was born.Cf. Alcibiades, xxiii. 8; Lysander, xxii. 3 ff.; Xenophon, Hellenica, iii. 3, 2.
