So nearly did this project approach to consummation, that Silenus actually presented himself at Delphi, and put in his claim. But one of the confederates either failed in his courage, or broke down, at the critical moment; so that the hidden records still remained hidden. Yet though Lysander was thus compelled to abandon his plan, nothing was made public about it until after his death. It might probably have succeeded, had he found temple-confederates of proper courage and cunning,—when we consider the profound and habitual deference of the Spartans to Delphi; upon the sanction of which oracle the Lykurgean institutions themselves were mainly understood to rest. And an occasion presently arose, on which the proposed change might have been tried with unusual facility and pertinence; though Lysander himself, having once miscarried, renounced his enterprise, and employed his influence, which continued unabated, in giving the sceptre to another instead of acquiring it for himself,[427]—like Mucian in reference to the emperor Vespasian. [427] Tacit. Histor. i, 10. “Cui expeditius fuerit tradere imperium, quam obtinere.” The general fact of the conspiracy of Lysander to open for himself a way to the throne, appears to rest on very sufficient testimony,—that of Ephorus; to whom perhaps the words φασί τινες in Aristotle may allude, where he mentions this conspiracy as having been narrated (Polit. v, 1, 5). But Plutarch, as well as K. O. Müller (Hist. of Dorians, iv, 9, 5) and others, erroneously represent the intrigues with the oracle as being resorted to after Lysander returned from accompanying Agesilaus to Asia; which is certainly impossible, since Lysander accompanied Agesilaus out, in the spring of 396 B.C.—did not return to Greece until the spring of 395 B.C.—and was then employed, with an interval not greater than four or five months, on that expedition against Bœotia wherein he was slain.