Page "Agesilaus II" Paragraph 2

Of the youth of Agesilaus we have little detail.

We do know that he was not expected to succeed to the throne after his brother king Agis II, largely due to the fact that he was crippled from birth, and since the latter had a son, named Leotychidas.

Therefore, Agesilaus was trained in the traditional curriculum of Sparta, the agoge.

But Leotychidas was ultimately set aside as illegitimate, contemporary rumors representing him as the son of Alcibiades, and Agesilaus became king around 401 BC, at the age of about forty.

In addition to questions of his nephew's paternity, Agesilaus ' succession was largely due to the intervention of his Spartan general, Lysander, who hoped to find in him a willing tool for the furtherance of his political designs.

Lysander and the young Agesilaus came to maintain an intimate relation ( see Pederasty in Ancient Greece ), as was common of the period.

Their unique relationship would serve an important role during Agesilaus ' later campaigns in Asia Minor.