The thirty Spartan counsellors, over whom Lysander had been named to preside, finding themselves neither consulted by him, nor solicited by others, were deeply dissatisfied. Their complaints helped to encourage Agesilaus, who was still more keenly wounded in his own personal dignity, to put forth a resolute and imperious strength of will, such as he had not before been known to possess. He successively rejected every petition preferred to him by or through Lysander; a systematic purpose which, though never formally announced,[480] was presently discerned by the petitioners, by the Thirty, and by Lysander himself. The latter thus found himself not merely disappointed in all his calculations, but humiliated to excess, though without any tangible ground of complaint. He was forced to warn his partisans, that his intervention was an injury and not a benefit to them; that they must desist from obsequious attentions to him, and must address themselves directly to Agesilaus. With that prince he also remonstrated on his own account,—“Truly, Agesilaus, you know how to degrade your friends.”—“Ay, to be sure (was the reply), those among them who want to appear greater than I am; but such as seek to uphold me, I should be ashamed if I did not know how to repay with due honor.”—Lysander was constrained to admit the force of this reply, and to request, as the only means of escape from present and palpable humiliation, that he might be sent on some mission apart; engaging to serve faithfully in whatever duty he might be employed.[481] [480] The sarcastic remarks which Plutarch ascribes to Agesilaus, calling Lysander “my meat-distributor” (κρεοδαίτην), are not warranted by Xenophon, and seem not to be probable under the circumstances (Plutarch, Lysand. c. 23; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 8). [481] Xen. Hellen. iii, 4, 7-10; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 7-8; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 23. It is remarkable that in the Opusculum of Xenophon, a special Panegyric called _Agesilaus_, not a word is said about this highly characteristic proceeding between Agesilaus and Lysander at Ephesus; nor indeed is the name of Lysander once mentioned. This proposition, doubtless even more agreeable to Agesilaus than to himself, being readily assented to, he was despatched on a mission to the Hellespont. Faithful to his engagement of forgetting past offences and serving with zeal, he found means to gain over a Persian grandee named Spithridates, who had received some offence from Pharnabazus. Spithridates revolted openly, carrying a regiment of two hundred horse to join Agesilaus; who was thus enabled to inform himself fully about the satrapy of Pharnabazus, comprising the territory called Phrygia, in the neighborhood of the Propontis and the Hellespont.[482] [482] Xen. Hellen. iii, 4, 10.