contributed also money for the state of Lacedaemon; and so they sped
him home.

[34] King of Egypt.

And now the weight of, may be, fourscore years was laid upon him,[35]
when it came under his observation that the king of Egypt,[36] with
his hosts of foot and horse and stores of wealth, had set his heart on
a war with Persia. Joyfully he learned that he himself was summoned by
King Tachos, and that the command-in-chief of all the forces was
promised to him. By this one venture he would achieve three objects,
which were to requite the Egyptian for the benefits conferred on
Lacedaemon; to liberate the Hellenes in Asia once again; and to
inflict on the Persian a just recompense, not only for the old
offences, but for this which was of to-day; seeing that, while
boasting alliance with Sparta, he had dictatorially enjoined the
emancipation of Messene.[37] But when the man who had summoned him
refused to confer the proffered generalship, Agesilaus, like one on
whom a flagrant deception has been practised, began to consider the
part he had to play. Meanwhile a separate division[38] of the Egyptian
armies held aloof from their king. Then, the disaffection spreading,
all the rest of his troops deserted him; whereat the monarch took
flight and retired in exile to Sidon in Phoenicia, leaving the
Egyptians, split in faction, to choose to themselves a pair of
kings.[39] Thereupon Agesilaus took his decision. If he helped
neither, it meant that neither would pay the service-money due to his
Hellenes, that neither would provide a market, and that, whichever of
the two conquered in the end, Sparta would be equally detested. But if
he threw in his lot with one of them, that one would in all likelihood
in return for the kindness prove a friend. Accordingly he chose