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equally eminent in the field of politics and of war, with positive 

 orders not only to emancipate the Asiatic Greeks wholly from the 

 Persian yoke, but to carry on a vigorous and active war against the 

 satrap who governed the districts in which they lay. These orders 

 were immediately and successfully put in execution, in the first 

 instance, against Tissaphernes, satrap of Sardis, who was defeated in 

 a regular battle, and the plunder of his rich government afforded 

 ample means of enlarging the sphere of operation, and subjecting 

 that of Bithynia, and others still more remote from Greece*. 

 While Agesilaus was pursuing this victorious career, and on the 

 point of carrying the war into the very heart of Persia, a storm, more 

 fearful than ever had yet hovered over any city of Greece, was 

 about to burst upon Lacedaemon. The ill use she had made of the 

 conquest of her once-haughty rival, and her almost boundless con- 

 trol over the other dependant states, had operated, in conjunction 

 with a plentiful diffusion of Persian gold, to arm against her, in one 

 general confederacy, all the inferior republics of Greece, which, 

 with Athens at their head, were preparing to take a severe revenge 

 for the injuries inflicted by her tyranny. The intrepid spirit and 

 deep political wisdom of Agesilaus were now become necessary 

 to the very existence of his country, and he was recalled from the 

 ardent pursuit of foreign glory to the domestic defence of all that 

 was dear to him as a king and a man . But his return and exer- 

 tion, though vigorous, were of little avail: it was now the turn 

 of Athens once more to triumph. The Lacedaemonian fleet being 

 completely beaten at sea, by the confederated Persian and Athenian 

 navy, under the able conduct of Conon, left Laconia open to the 

 ravages of the enemy ; and afforded opportunity to that patriot 

 admiral to rebuild the long walls which had formed the glory 



* Xenophon Hellen. lib. iii. cap. 4, sect. 25, et Plutarch in Agesilao. 



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