e journey,
but being there arrived, death speedily overtook him. He was buried with
a sepulchre transcending in solemnity the lot of ordinary mortality. (1)

(1) See "Ages." xi. 16; "Pol. Lac." xv. 9.

When the holy days of mourning were accomplished, and it was necessary
to choose another king, there were rival claimants to the throne.
Leotychides claimed it as the son, Agesilaus as the brother, of Agis.
Then Leotychides protested: "Yet consider, Agesilaus, the law bids not
'the king's brother,' but 'the king's son' to be king; only if there
chance to be no son, in that case shall the brother of the king be
king." Agesilaus: "Then must I needs be king." Leotychides: "How so,
seeing that I am not dead?" Agesilaus: "Because he whom you call
your father denied you, saying, 'Leotychides is no son of mine.'"
Leotychides: "Nay, but my mother, who would know far better than
he, said, and still to-day says, I am." Agesilaus: "Nay, but the god
himself, Poteidan, laid his finger on thy falsity when by his earthquake
he drove forth thy father from the bridal chamber into the light of day;
and time, 'that tells no lies,' as the proverb has it, bare witness to
the witness of the god; for just ten months from the moment at which he
fled and was no more seen within that chamber, you were born." (2) So
they reasoned together.

(2) I have followed Sauppe as usual, but see Hartman ("Anal. Xen." p.
327) for a discussion of the whole passage. He thinks Xenophon
wrote {ex ou gar toi ephugen} ({o sos pater}, i.e. adulterer) {ek
to thalamo dekato meni tu ephus}. The Doric {ek to thalamo} was
corrupted into {en to thalamo} and {kai ephane} inserted. This
corrupt reading Plutarch had before him, and hence his distorted
version of the story.

Diopethes, (3) a great authority upon oracles, supported Leotychides.
There was an oracle of Apollo, he urged, which said "Beware of the lame
reign." But Diopethes was met by Lysander, who in behalf of Agesilaus
demurred to this interpretation put upon the language of the god. If
they were to beware of a lame reign, it meant not, beware lest a man
stumble and halt, but rather, beware of him in whose veins flows not the
blood of Heracles; most assuredly the kingdom would halt, and that would
be a lame reign in very deed, whensoever the descendants of Heracles
should cease to lead the state. Such were the arguments on either side,
after hearing which the city chose Agesilaus to