XX. Lysander, when this skytale reached him at the Hellespont, was much troubled, and as he especially feared the accusations of Pharnabazus, he hastened to confer with him, with a view to settling their dispute. When they met, Lysander begged him to write a second letter to the Spartan government, stating that he had not received any wrong, and that he had no charge to bring against him. It was, however, a case of "diamond cut diamond," as the proverb has it, for Pharnabazus, while he ostensibly promised to do everything that Lysander wished, and to send publicly a letter dictated by him, had by him another privately-written despatch, and when the seals were about to be affixed, as the two letters looked exactly alike, he substituted the privately-written one for that which Lysander had seen. When then Lysander reached Lacedæmon, and proceeded, as it customary, to the senate-house, he handed over to the Ephors this letter of Pharnabazus, with the conviction that thereby he was quashing the most important of all the charges against himself; for Pharnabazus was much loved by the Lacedæmonians, because he had taken their part in the war more zealously than any other Persian satrap. When, however, the Ephors showed him the letter, and he perceived that "Others besides Odysseus[153] can contrive," he retired in great confusion, and a few days afterwards, on meeting with the Ephors, informed them that he must go and pay a sacrifice to Ammon[154]; which he had vowed before winning his victories. Some historians tell us that this was true, and that when he was besieging Aphytæ, a city in Thrace, the god Ammon appeared to him in a dream; in consequence of which he raised the siege, imagining this to be the will of the god, ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Ammon, and himself made preparations for proceeding at once to Libya to propitiate the god. Most persons, however, imagined that this was a mere pretence, but that really he feared the Ephors, and was unable to endure the harsh discipline of life at Sparta, and therefore wished to travel abroad, just as a horse longs for liberty when he has been brought back out of wide pastures to his stable and his accustomed work. As to the cause which Ephorus gives for these travels of his, I will mention that presently.