The influence of Lysander,[445] combined doubtless with a preponderance of sentiment already tending towards Agesilaus, caused this effort of interpretative subtlety to be welcomed as convincing, and led to the nomination of the lame candidate as king. There was, however, a considerable minority, to whom this decision appeared a sin against the gods and a mockery of the oracle. And though the murmurs of such dissentients were kept down by the ability and success of Agesilaus during the first years of his reign; yet when, in his ten last years, calamity and humiliation were poured thickly upon this proud city, the public sentiment came decidedly round to their view. Many a pious Spartan then exclaimed, with feelings of bitter repentance, that the divine word never failed to come true at last,[446] and that Sparta was justly punished for having wilfully shut her eyes to the distinct and merciful warning vouchsafed to her, about the mischiefs of a “lame reign.”[447] [445] Pausanias, iii, 8, 5; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 3; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22; Justin, vi, 2. [446] Ἴδ᾽ οἷον, ὦ παῖδες, προσέμιξεν ἄφαρ Τοὔπος τὸ θεοπρόπον ἡμῖν Τῆς παλαιφάτου προνοίας, Ὅ τ᾽ ἔλακεν, etc. This is a splendid chorus of the Trachiniæ of Sophokles (822) proclaiming their sentiments on the awful death of Hêraklês, in the tunic of Nessus, which has just been announced as about to happen. [447] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30; Plutarch, Compar. Agesil. and Pomp. c. 1. Ἀγησίλαος δὲ τὴν βασιλείαν ἔδοξε λαβεῖν, οὔτε τὰ πρὸς θεοὺς ἄμεμπτος, οὔτε τὰ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους, κρίνας νοθείας Λεωτυχίδην, ὃν υἱὸν αὑτοῦ ἀπέδειξεν ὁ ἀδελφὸς γνήσιον, τὸν δὲ χρησμὸν κατειρωνευσάμενος τὸν περὶ τῆς χωλότητος. Again, ib. c. 2. δι᾽ Ἀγησίλαον ἐπεσκότησε τῷ χρησμῷ Λύσανδρος.