to render Greece to the king my master; but they were exiles and
fugitives, they had nothing to risk or lose; thou hast fame, and
command, and power, and riches, and all----"

"But for a throne," interrupted Gongylus.

"It does not matter what may be my motives," returned the Spartan
gloomily, "and were I to tell them, you might not comprehend. But so
much by way of explanation. You too have held command?"

"I have."

"If you knew that, when power became to you so sweet that it was as
necessary to life itself as food and drink, it would then be snatched
from you for ever, and you would serve as a soldier in the very ranks
you had commanded as a leader; if you knew that no matter what your
services, your superiority, your desires, this shameful fall was
inexorably doomed, might you not see humiliation in power itself,
obscurity in renown, gloom in the present, despair in the future? And
would it not seem to you nobler even to desert the camp than to sink
into a subaltern?"

"Such a prospect has in our country made out of good subjects fierce
rebels," observed the Persian.

"Ay, ay, I doubt it not," said Pausanias, laughing bitterly. "Well,
then, such will be my lot, if I pluck not out a fairer one from the
Fatal Urn. As Regent of Sparta, while my nephew is beardless, I am
general of her armies, and I have the sway and functions of her king.
When he arrives at the customary age, I am a subject, a citizen, a