om a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to
flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable
triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achaean
League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an
ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation
for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to
him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself,
and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not
be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be
silenced.

In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its
incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen
marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took
possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had
hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those
who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its
territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made
citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three
thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further
insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at
Megalopolis.

Finally, as a death-blow to Spartan power, he abolished the time-honored
laws of Lycurgus, under which that city had for centuries been so great,
and forced the people to educate their children and live in the same
manner as the Achaeans. Thus ended the glory of Sparta. Some time
afterwards its citizens resumed their old laws and customs, but the city
had sunk from its high estate, and from that time forward vanished from
history.

At length, being then seventy years of age, misfortune came to this
great warrior and ended his warlike career. An enemy of his had induced
the Messenians to revolt from the Achaean League. At once the old
soldier, though lying sick with a fever at Argos, rose from his bed, and
reached Megalopolis, fifty miles away, in a day. Putting himself at the
head of an army, he marched to meet the foe. In the fight that followed
his force was driven back, and he became separated from his men in his
efforts to protect the rear. Unluckily his horse stumbled in a stony
place, and he was thrown to the ground and stunned. The enemy, who were
following closely, at once made him prisoner, and carried him, with
ins