The coin of Persia was stamped with the figure of an archer;Agesilaus said, That a thousand Persian archers had driven him out of Asia meaning, the money that had been laid out in bribing the demagogues and the orators in Thebes and Athens, and thus inciting those two states to hostility against Sparta.
Having passed the Hellespont, he marched by land through Thrace, not begging or entreating a passage anywhere, only he sent his messengers to them to demand whether they would have him pass as a friend or as an enemy. All the rest received him as a friend, and assisted him on his journey. But the Trallians, to whom Xerxes is also said to have given money, demanded a price of him, namely, one hundred talents of silver and one hundred women. Agesilaus in scorn asked, Why they were not ready to receive them? He marched on, and finding the Trallians in arms to oppose him, fought them, and slew great numbers of them. He sent the like embassy to the King of Macedonia, who replied, He would take time to deliberate. "Let him deliberate,"said Agesilaus, "we will go forward in the meantime." The Macedonian, being surprised and daunted the resolution of the Spartan, gave orders to let him pass as a friend.
When he came into Thessaly he wasted the country, because they were in league with the enemy. To Larissa, the chief city of Thessaly, he sent Xenocles and Scythes to treat of a peace, whom when the Larissaeans had laid hold of, and put into custody, others were enraged, and advised siege of the town; but he answered, That he valued either of those men at more than the whole country of Thessaly.
He therefore made terms with them, and received his men again upon composition. Nor need wonder at this saying of Agesilaus, since when he had news brought him from Sparta, of several great captains in a battle near Corinth, in which the slaughter fell upon other Greeks, and the Lacedaemonians obtained a great victory with small loss, he did not appear at all satisfied; but with a great sigh cried out, "OGreece, how many brave men hast thou destroyed; who, if they had been preserved to so good an use, had sufficed to have conquered all Persia!" Yet when the Pharsalians grew troublesome to him, by pressing upon his army and incommoding his passage, he led out five hundred horse, and in person fought and routed them, setting up a trophy under the mount Narthacius. He valued himself very much upon that victory, that with so small a number of his own training, he had vanquished a body of men that thought themselves the best horsemen of Greece.
Here Diphridas, the Ephor, met him, and delivered his message from Sparta, which ordered him immediately to make an inroad into Boeotia; and though he thought this fitter to have been done at another time, and with greater force, he yet obeyed the magistrates.
He thereupon told his soldiers that the day had come on which they were to enter upon that employment for the performance of which they were brought out of Asia. He sent for two divisions of the army near Corinth to his assistance. The Lacedaemonians at home, in honour to him, made proclamations for volunteers that would serve under the king to come in and be enlisted. Finding all the young men in the city ready to offer themselves, they chose fifty of the strongest, and sent them.
Agesilaus having gained Thermopylae, and passed quietly through Phocis, as soon as he had entered Boeotia, and pitched his camp near Chaeronea, at once met with an eclipse of the sun, and with ill news from the navy, Pisander, the Spartan admiral, being beaten and slain at Cnidos by Pharnabazus and Conon. He was much moved at it, both upon his own and the public account. Yet lest his army, being now near engaging, should meet with any discouragement, he ordered the messengers to give out that the Spartans were the conquerors, and he himself putting on garland, solemnly sacrificed for the good news, and sent portions of the sacrifices to his friends.
When he came near to Coronea, and was within view of the enemy, he drew up his army, and giving the left wing to the Orchomenians, he himself led the right. The Thebans took the right wing of their army, leaving the left to the Argives. Xenophon, who was present, and fought on Agesilaus's side, reports it to be the hardest-fought battle that he had seen. The beginning of it was not so, for the Thebans soon put the Orchomenians to rout, as also did Agesilaus the Argives. But both parties having news of the misfortune of their left wings, they betook themselves to their relief. Here Agesilaus might have been sure of his victory had he contented himself not to charge them in the front, but in the flank or rear; but being angry and heated in the fight he would not wait the opportunity, but fell on at once, thinking to bear them down before him. The Thebans were not behind him in courage, so that the battle was fiercely carried on on both sides, especially near Agesilaus's person, whose new guard of fifty volunteers stood him in great stead that day, and saved his life. They fought with great valour, and interposed their bodies frequently between him and danger, yet could they not so preserve him, but that he received many wounds through his armour with lances and swords, and was with much difficulty gotten off alive by their ****** a ring about him, and so guarding him, with the slaughter of many of the enemy, and the loss of many of their own number. At length, finding it too hard a task to break the front of the Theban troops, they opened their own files, and let the enemy march through them (an artifice which in the beginning they scorned), watching in the meantime the posture of the enemy, who, having passed through, grew careless, as esteeming themselves past danger, in which position they were immediately set upon by the Spartans. Yet were they not then put to rout, but marched on to Helicon, proud of what they had done, being able to say that they themselves, as to their part of the army, were not worsted.