V. In his dealings with his fellow-citizens he is more to be praised as an enemy than as a friend; for he would not act unjustly to injure his enemies, but he sometimes disregarded justice in the interests of his friends.  He was of too generous a nature to refrain from applauding even his enemies when they deserved it, but could not bear to reproach his friends for their faults, which he delighted to share with them, and to extricate them from the consequences, for he thought nothing disgraceful if done to serve a friend.[174] He was also ever ready to forgive and assist those with whom he had been at variance, and thus won all hearts, and attained to a true popularity.  The Ephors indeed, perceiving this, imposed a fine upon him, alleging as a reason for it that he was attaching the Spartans to his own person instead of to the State.  For just as physical philosophers tell us that if the principle of strife and opposition were removed, the heavenly bodies would stand still, and all the productive power of nature would be at an end, so did the Laconian lawgiver endeavour to quicken the virtue of his citizens by constructing a constitution out of opposing elements, deeming that success is barren when there is none to resist, and that the harmonious working of a political system is valueless if purchased by the suppression of any important element.  Some have thought that the germ of this idea can be traced in Homer,[175] for he would not have represented Agamemnon as rejoicing when Achilles and Odysseus quarrel ‘with savage words,’ had he not thought that some great public benefit would arise from this opposition and rivalry of the bravest.  But to this one cannot altogether agree; for party strife, if carried to excess, proves most dangerous and ruinous to all communities.

VI.  Shortly after Agesilaus had been raised to the throne he received news from Asia that the Persian king was preparing a large army with which he intended to drive the Lacedaemonians into the sea.  Upon hearing this, Lysander was very eager to be sent out again to conduct affairs in Asia, in order that he might be able to assist his own friends and partizans, whom he had appointed as governors to many of the cities in that country, but who had mostly been forcibly expelled by the citizens for their insolent and tyrannical conduct.  He therefore urged Agesilaus to undertake a campaign in Asia as the champion of Greece, and advised him to land upon some distant part of the coast, so as to establish himself securely before the arrival of the Persian army.  At the same time he despatched instructions to his friends in Asia, to send to Lacedaemon, and demand Agesilaus as their general.  In a public debate upon the subject, Agesilaus agreed to conduct the war if he were furnished with thirty Spartans to act as generals, and to form a council of war.  He also demanded a force of ten thousand picked men of the Neodamodes, or enfranchised Helots, and six thousand hoplites, or heavy armed