Reading Xenophon’s encomium to Agesilaos this morning. His words seem to arise out of a love for Agesilaos’ virtue, and maybe out of a desire to see more people know that such a life was possible.

“What opinion some hold in regard to these matters I know well enough; but for my part I am persuaded that many more men can gain the mastery over their enemies than over impulses such as these. No doubt when these things are known to few, many have a right to be skeptical: but we all know this, that the greater a man’s fame, the fiercer is the light that beats on all his actions…” (Loeb edition, Xenophon VII, Scripta Minora, 109)

The text reads as a eulogy, and as an encomium, and almost as a hagiography. We have very little of that in our time. We are skeptical of sainthood, skeptical that anyone can live a life of virtue. We are more inclined to be Diogenes, doubting that there can be any good man.

This morning I am finding that even if Xenophon’s praise is an exaggeration, the thought of a king who sought the good of his people, who led them to battle at the risk of his own skin, who sought to avoid battle when alternatives were available, who refused statues in his honor and who would not gild his own throne when his people were suffering, who refused wealth and its comforts and preferred to give the best places and the best portions to those whose lives were worthy of imitation — this morning as I read all of this I am finding it to be an invitation to self-examination. What kind of leader am I? What kind of leaders do I follow? Maybe Agesilaos was not as good as Xenophon remembers him, but his memory of Agesilaos is enough to make me want to be better, to have better leaders, to work harder for the common good.