Agesilaus II was a Eurypontid king of the Ancient Greek city-state of Sparta.
Background
Agesilaus was borm in 444 B. C. Agesilaus was a son of the Spartan king Archidamus II. Agesilaus was not in the direct line of succession after his elder brother King Agis II died, but the powerful military commander Lysander contrived to have Agis's son disqualified as a bastard fathered by Alcibiades and engineered Agesilaus's election as king about 399.
Career
Agesilaus's first command was in Asia Minor against the Persians in 396-394. He failed to gain any permanent advantage but amassed a huge amount of booty. Meanwhile Sparta's supremacy in Greece was broken by the states in central Greece. Lysander was killed in Boeotia, and the other of Sparta's dual kings, Pausanias, was banished for incompetence in the face of the enemy. Agesilaus was recalled from the field and marched his army homeward. He broke through the enemy lines at Coronea, where he was wounded, and reached Sparta well laden with loot. Agesilaus thus became in effect sole king, and he dominated the politics of Sparta until his death.
From 394 to 388 Agesilaus tried in vain to break a stalemate with the states of central Greece, which held the Isthmus of Corinth. He therefore entered into an alliance with Persia and negotiated a general peace with Persian backing in 386. Thebes alone remained independent; Agesilaus mustered his troops and subdued Thebes.
The King's Peace, as it was called, was a triumph for Persia and restored Sparta's supremacy. Agesilaus, however, failed to reform Sparta's ways and in particular to offset its dwindling population. He enforced Sparta's rule in Greece by ruthless methods, which appealed to the militarist strain in the Spartan character, and between 385 and 379 he subdued Mantinea, Phlius, Thebes, and the Chalcidian League. Sparta now dominated the Greek world, with Persia in the east and Syracuse in the west as allies.
The tide turned in 379-378. Thebes broke away from Spartan dominance. Athens followed Thebes into a coalition when a Spartan officer, Sphodrias, made an unsuccessful treacherous attack on Athens in time of peace and Agesilaus shielded him from the consequences. Saddled with a war against Thebes and Athens, Agesilaus invaded Boeotia in 378 and 377 but achieved nothing. In 376 he became ill, and his coruler at the time, Cleombrotus, failed to invade Boeotia. Thebes resurrected the Boeotian League, and Athens formed a maritime coalition. In 371 a new King's Peace was made, but Agesilaus again broke it. This time Epaminondas, the Theban commander, was not intimidated. A Spartan army under Cleombrotus invaded Boeotia and was decisively defeated by Epaminondas; Sparta's empire collapsed. The old king Agesilaus organized Sparta's defenses in 370 and again in 362. He led a Spartan force fighting the Persians in Egypt in 361 and died at sea while returning.
Views
Quotations:
And when asked whether he wanted a memorial erected in his honor:
"If I have done any noble action, that is a sufficient memorial; if I have done nothing noble, all the statues in the world will not preserve my memory. "
Personality
Agesilaus was of small stature and unimpressive appearance, and was lame from birth. These facts were used as an argument against his succession, an oracle having warned Sparta against a "lame reign. "
Most ancient writers considered him a highly successful leader in guerrilla warfare, alert and quick, yet cautious—a man, moreover, whose personal bravery was rarely questioned in his own time. Of his courage, temperance, and hardiness, many instances are cited: and to these were added the less Spartan qualities of kindliness and tenderness as a father and a friend. As examples: there is the story of his riding a stick-horse with his children and upon being discovered by a friend desiring that he not mention till he himself were the father of children; and because of the affection of his son Archidamus' for Cleonymus, he saved Sphodrias, Cleonymus' father, from execution for his incursion into the Piraeus, and dishonorable retreat, in 378 BC.
He lived in the most frugal style alike at home and in the field, and though his campaigns were undertaken largely to secure booty, he was content to enrich the state and his friends and to return as poor as he had set forth.
Quotes from others about the person
Plutarch includes among his 78 essays and speeches comprising the apophthegmata Agesilaus' letter to the ephors on his recall:
"We have reduced most of Asia, driven back the barbarians, made arms abundant in Ionia. But since you bid me, according to the decree, come home, I shall follow my letter, may perhaps be even before it. For my command is not mine, but my country's and her allies'. And a commander then commands truly according to right when he sees his own commander in the laws and ephors, or others holding office in the state. "