all his forces to a field called Dromos,
(the course,) and ordered the Lacedaemonians to be called to an
assembly without their arms. He then formed a line of armed men round
the place where they were assembled, observing briefly, "that he ought
to be excused, if, at such a juncture, he feared and guarded against
every thing that might happen; and that, if the present state of
affairs subjected any to suspicion, it was their advantage to be
prevented from attempting any design, rather than to be punished
for attempting it: he therefore intended," he said, "to keep certain
persons in custody, until the storm, which then threatened, should
have passed over; and would discharge them as soon as the enemy should
have been driven away, from whom the danger would be less, when proper
precaution was taken against internal treachery." He then ordered the
names of about eighty of the principal young men to be called over,
and as each answered to his name, he put them in custody. On the night
following, they were all put to death. Some of the Helotes, a race of
rustics, who have been feudal vassals even from the earliest times,
being charged with an intention to desert, they were driven with
stripes through all the streets, and put to death. The terror which
this excited so confounded the multitude, as to deter them from
all attempts to effect a revolution. He kept his forces within the
fortifications, knowing that he was not a match for the enemy in the
field; and, besides, he was afraid to leave the city, while all men's
minds were in a state of such suspense and uncertainty.

28. Quinctius, when all his preparations were now sufficiently made,
decamped; and, on the second day, came to Sellasia, on the river
Oenus, on the spot where it is said Antigonus, king of Macedonia,
fought a pitched battle with Cleomenes, tyrant of Lacedaemon. Being
told that the ascent from thence was difficult, and the passes narrow,
he made a short circuit by the mountains, sending forward a party to
make a road, and came, by a tolerably broad and open passage, to the
river Eurotas, where it flows almost immediately under the walls of
the city. Here, the tyrant's auxiliary troops attacked the Romans,
while they were forming their camp, together with Quinctius himself,
(who, with a division of cavalry and light troops, had advanced beyond
the rest,) and threw them into a state of alarm and confusion; not
expecting any thing of the kind, as no one had op