en.
He awaited Damophantus's onset, and with his spear thrust him from his
saddle. When he fell the Eleans at once turned and fled, to the great
glory of Philopoemen, who had proved himself as brave as the youngest
and as skilful as the oldest soldier, equally able to fight or to
command.

VIII. The Achaean League was first organised by Aratus, who formed its
scattered and despicable cities into a noble and truly Greek
commonwealth; then, as in running streams, when first a few small
stones resist the flow of the water, soon much more is brought down by
the stream and lodged against them until a firm ground is formed; so
did the Achaeans, by assisting some of the neighbouring cities and
freeing them from despots, and by uniting and incorporating others
with themselves, endeavour to combine the whole of Peloponnesus into
one single state, at a time when Greece was especially weak, having
lost all cohesion, each city relying solely on itself. While Aratus
lived they depended much on the Macedonians, courting first Ptolemy,
then Antigonus and Philip, who all were constantly interfering in the
affairs of Greece. But when Philopoemen came to command they already
felt themselves a match for the most powerful states, and no longer
paid their court to foreign patrons. Aratus, who was no soldier, had
effected most of his successes by suave diplomacy and personal
friendship with foreign princes, as we have written in his Life: but
Philopoemen, a brave and vigorous, and, what is more, an eminently
successful commander in his first essays, greatly raised the spirit
and the strength of the Achaeans, by making them confident of victory
under his leadership.

IX. His first task was to alter the military equipment and arms of the
Achaeans. They had hitherto used light shields, too narrow to protect
the body, and spears much smaller than the long Macedonian pike. This
light armament rendered them effective as skirmishers, but unable to
hold their own in close fighting. Their order of battle, too, was
loose and without cohesion, having neither the projecting pikes nor
the serried shields of the Macedonian phalanx, in consequence of which
they were easily thrust aside and routed. Philopoemen pointed this out
to them, and persuaded them to adopt the heavy shield and pike in
place of their light arms, to accoutre themselves with helmet,
corslet, and greaves, and to endeavour to move in a steady unbroken
mass instead of in a loose irregul