4.3
but to have served all his campaigns most successfully as imperator, should be almost forced by the scoffs of Favonius and Domitius, and by the fear of being called Agamemnon, to put to the hazard the supremacy and freedom of Rome, who could tolerate this? If he had regard only for the immediate infamy involved, then he ought to have made a stand at the first and to have fought to its finish the fight for Rome, instead of calling the flight which he then made a Themistoclean stratagem and afterwards counting it a disgraceful thing to delay before fighting in Thessaly.
4.4
For surely Heaven had not appointed that Pharsalian plain to be the stadium and theatre of their struggle for the supremacy, nor was he summoned by voice of herald to go down thither and do battle or leave to another the victor’s wreath; nay, there were many plains, ten thousand cities, and a whole earth which his great resources by sea afforded him had he wished to imitate Maximus, or Marius, or Lucullus, or Agesilaüs himself,
4.5
who withstood no less tumults in Sparta when its citizens wished to fight with the Thebans in defence of their land, and in Egypt endured many calumnies and accusations and suspicions on the part of the king when he urged him to keep quiet; but he followed his own best counsels as he wished,
4.6
and not only saved the Egyptians against their wills, and by his sole efforts ever kept Sparta upright in the midst of so great a convulsion, but actually set up a trophy in the city for a victory over the Thebans, which victory he put his countrymen in the way of winning later, by keeping them then from the destruction into which they would have forced their way. Wherefore Agesilaüs was afterwards commended by those whom he had forced to take the path of safety, while Pompey, whom others had led into error, found accusers in the very ones to whom he had yielded.
