Agesilaus

Family: Sparta · Role: king · First appears: Book 3 · Chapter 2

When Archidamus died, his elder son Agis succeeded him rather than Agesilaus. After Agis’s death, Agesilaus drove Leotychides from the kingdom, invoking Agis’s former speech; Lysander persuaded the people to choose Agesilaus unanimously as king. His family included his father Archidamus, his sister Cynisca, his son Archidamus, and his son Archelaus; Aristomenidas was the father of his mother.

Appointed commander of the land forces for the Asian expedition, Agesilaus set out against Artaxerxes. At Aulis, Thebans attacked him during a sacrifice and drove him from Artemis’s temple. Near the Hermus, he defeated Tissaphernes’s Persian forces. The Corinthian War then compelled him to bring his army home from Asia Minor; after routing Thessalian cavalry, he defeated the Thebans and their allies at Coronea. He put Pisander, his wife’s brother, in command of the triremes.

Later, a detachment Agesilaus sent from Amyclæ was destroyed by Athenians under Iphicrates. He marched into Ætolia and compelled the Acarnanians to end their war against the Ætolians. At Sparta, when Epaminondas marched against the city, Agesilaus declined combat. Some time afterwards, while returning from Egypt, Agesilaus died.