CHAPTER XLIII. THE CORINTHIAN WAR [Sidenote: [394 B.C.]] Two cares principally engaged Agesilaus before his departure; to provide security for the Asian Greeks in his absence, and to have a numerous and well-appointed army to lead into Greece. For the former purpose, naming Euxenus to preside, with the title of harmost, he placed a body of four thousand men under his orders. With the latter view, he proposed prizes for the cities which should furnish the best troops; and for commanders of mercenaries, horse, heavy-armed, bowmen, and targeteers, whose bands should be the best chosen, best appointed, and best disciplined. The prizes were mostly arms, elegantly wrought; but, for higher merit, or the merit of those of higher rank, there were some golden crowns; and Xenophon mentions it, as a large sum for the occasion, that the expense amounted to four talents, less than a thousand pounds sterling. Three Lacedæmonians, with one officer from each Asiatic city, were named for judges; but the decision, or the declaration of it, was judiciously referred to the arrival of the army in the Thracian Chersonesus. Unable as the leading men in the Lacedæmonian administration were, either to conduct a war against the powerful confederacy formed against them, or, upon any tolerable terms, to prevent it, the recall of Agesilaus seems to have been a necessary measure. The army assembled by their enemies was such as had not often been seen in wars within Greece. Argos furnished seven thousand heavy-armed; Athens had already recovered strength to send six thousand, and add six hundred horse; Bœotia, Corinth, Eubœa, and Locris made the whole of the army twenty-four thousand heavy-armed, with above fifteen hundred cavalry; to which was added a large body of the best light-armed of Greece, Acarnanians, Ozolian Locrians, and Malians. The fighting men of all descriptions must have amounted to fifty thousand. The avowed purpose was to invade Laconia. “The Lacedæmonian state,” said the Corinthian Timolaus, in a debate on the plan of operations, “resembles a river, which, near the source, is easily forded, but the farther it flows, other streams joining, the depth and power of the current increases. Thus the Lacedæmonians always march from home with their own troops only; but as they proceed, being reinforced from other cities, their army swells and grows formidable. I hold it therefore advisable to attack them, if possible, in Lacedæmon itself; otherwise, the nearer to Lacedæmon the better.”