Agesilaus had, moreover, incurred unpopularity among the Spartans themselves, whose chagrin took the form of religious scruple and uneasiness. It has been already stated that he was, and had been from childhood, lame; which deformity had been vehemently insisted on by his opponents (during the dispute between him and Leotychides in 398 B.C. for the vacant throne) as disqualifying him for the regal dignity, and as being the precise calamity against which an ancient oracle—“Beware of a lame reign”—had given warning. Ingenious interpretation by Lysander, combined with superior personal merit in Agesilaus, and suspicions about the legitimacy of Leotychides, had caused the objection to be then overruled. But there had always been a party, even during the palmy days of Agesilaus, who thought that he had obtained the crown under no good auspices. And when the humiliation of Sparta arrived, every man’s religion suggested to him readily the cause of it,[438]—“See what comes of having set at nought the gracious warning of the gods, and put upon ourselves a lame reign!” In spite of such untoward impression, however, the real energy and bravery of Agesilaus, which had not deserted even an infirm body and an age of seventy years, was more than ever indispensable to his country. He was still the chief leader of her affairs, condemned to the sad necessity of submitting to this Mantinean affront, and much worse that followed it, without the least power of hindrance. [438] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30, 31, 34.