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When they displayed their bad qualities in these posts and were recalled to take their trial he used to come forward as their friend and by his exertions on their behalf make them his active partisans instead of his enemies, so that before long he succeeded in breaking up the party which was opposed to him, and reigned alone without any rival; for the other king, Agesipolis, whose father had been an exile, and who was himself very young, and of a mild and unassuming temper, counted for nothing in the state.

War was declared, accordingly, by all the Hellenes at a great diet in Corinth, and Flamininus advanced into the Peloponnesus accompanied by the fleet and the Romano-allied army, which included a contingent sent by Philip and a division of Lacedaemonian emigrants under Agesipolis, the legitimate king of Sparta . In order to crush his antagonist immediately by an overwhelming superiority of force, no less than 50,000 men were brought into the field, and, the other towns being disregarded, the capital itself was at once invested; but the desired result was not attained.

Agesipolis, his fellow king, was under the disadvantage of being born of an exiled father, and himself young, modest, and inactive, meddled not much in affairs. Agesilaus took a course of gaining him over, and making him entirely tractable. According to the custom of Sparta, the kings, if they were in town, always dined together.

In Greek history we read how Agesipolis, King of Sparta, when besieging Mantinea, directed the stream of the Ophis along the foot of its walls of unburnt brick, and so caused them to crumble away. Cimon, son of Miltiades, attacked the defences of Eion, on the Strymon, in the same fashion.

He, dying without issue, was succeeded by a younger brother, called Cleombrotus, who left two sons; the elder was Agesipolis, who reigned but a short time, and died without issue; the younger, who then became king, was called Cleomenes, and had also two sons, Acrotatus and Cleonymus.

Knowing Agesipolis, like himself, to be prone to form attachments to young men, he always led the conversation to this subject, and encouraged the young king in doing so; for these love affairs among Lacedæmonians have in them nothing disgraceful, but produce much modest emulation and desire for glory, as has been explained in the Life of Lykurgus.

War was declared, accordingly, by all the Hellenes at a great diet in Corinth, and Flamininus advanced into the Peloponnesus accompanied by the fleet and the Romano-allied army, which included a contingent sent by Philip and a division of Lacedaemonian emigrants under Agesipolis, the legitimate king of Sparta . In order to crush his antagonist immediately by an overwhelming superiority of force, no less than 50,000 men were brought into the field, and, the other towns being disregarded, the capital itself was at once invested; but the desired result was not attained.