26
while he preserved for Evagoras those means whereby it was possible for him to gain the rule in accordance with piety and justice. For one of the princes,Abdemon: cf. Diodorus xiv. 98. starting a conspiracy, slew the tyrant and attempted to arrest Evagoras, believing that he would not be able to retain the rule himself unless he should get him out of the way.
27
But Evagoras escaped this peril, and having saved himself by fleeing to Soli in Cilicia did not show the same spirit as those who are the victims of like misfortune. For other exiles from royal power are humbled in spirit because of their misfortunes,whereas Evagoras attained to such greatness of soul that, although until that time he had lived as a private citizen, when he was driven into exile he determined to gain the throne.
28
The wandering life of an exile, the dependence upon the help of others in seeking his restoration and the paying of court to his inferiors—all these he scorned: but this he took as his guiding principle, which those who would be god-fearing men must take—to act only in self-defense and never to be the aggressor: and he chose either by success to regain the throne or, failing in that, to die. And so, calling to his side men numbering, according to the highest estimates, about fifty, with these he prepared to effect his return from exile.
