Soon after his arrival he received a message from Tissaphernes, calling on him to explain the design of his coming. Agesilaus replied, that his object was to restore the Asiatic Greeks to the independence which their brethren enjoyed on the other side of the Ægean. The satrap on this proposed a truce until the king’s pleasure could be taken on this demand; he engaged himself to support it with all the credit he possessed, and professed to believe that the court would comply with it. Agesilaus consented to the proposal, only requiring security for the observance of the engagement, and even this security was no more than the oath of Tissaphernes, which he pledged with due solemnity to Dercyllidas, and two other Spartan commissioners, who were sent to ratify the convention. Nothing however was farther from the mind of either party than the thought of peace. Tissaphernes, as soon as he had taken the oath, sent to the king for a reinforcement to enable him to take the field; and Agesilaus, who was well aware of his intentions, and probably would not otherwise have granted the truce, though he observed it with strict fidelity, undoubtedly did not suffer the time to be lost with regard to the progress of his own preparations. During this interval a breach, which the characters and views of the two men rendered almost inevitable, rose between him and Lysander. The rumour of the expedition, and of the part which Lysander was to take in it, seems to have rekindled the flames of discord in the Asiatic cities, which after the expulsion of his creatures had for a time been kept tranquil by the wise forbearance of the ephors and the prudent administration of Dercyllidas. When he came to Ephesus, his door was immediately besieged by a crowd of petitioners, who desired a license to oppress their countrymen under his patronage. After the victory of Ægospotami, Lysander, as the man who for the time wielded the irresistible power of Sparta, had been courted with extravagant servility by the Asiatic Greeks. They did not content themselves with the ordinary honours of golden crowns and statues, but raised altars and offered sacrifices, and sang pæans, and consecrated festivals to him as a god: the first example of that grossest kind of adulation, which afterwards became common among the Greeks, and was reduced to a system by the Romans. When he now appeared again in Asia, though in the train of a Spartan king, it was still supposed that the substance of power resided with him, and that he would direct the exercise of the royal authority, as he thought fit. He did not discountenance this persuasion, for he shared it himself. He had calculated on the subserviency of Agesilaus, whom he considered as mainly indebted to his friendship, first for the throne, and then--an obligation little inferior--for the command in Asia. But his colleagues, the rest of the Thirty, felt that the homage paid to him by the allies was derogatory, not only to the royal dignity, but to