s, if muzzled in this way, they would cease to oppose
them. It was better, he added, to restrain the freedom of speech of
their enemies than that of their friends. So uncorrupt was he, and
inaccessible to bribes.

XVI. When Diophanes, the commander-in-chief of the Achaeans,
endeavoured to punish the Lacedaemonians for a change in their policy,
and they by their resistance threw the whole of Peloponnesus into
confusion, Philopoemen tried to act as mediator, and to soothe the
anger of Diophanes, pointing out to him that at a time when the Romans
and king Antiochus with enormous forces were about to make Greece
their battle ground, a general ought to direct all his thoughts to
their movements, and to avoid any internal disturbance, willingly
accepting any apologies from those who did wrong. But as Diophanes
took no notice of him, but together with Flamininus invaded Laconia,
Philopoemen, disregarding the exact letter of the law, performed a most
spirited and noble action. He hurried to Sparta, and, though only a
private man, shut its gates in the faces of the commander-in-chief of
the Achaeans and of the Roman consul, put an end to the revolutionary
movement there, and prevailed upon the city to rejoin the Achaean
league. Some time afterwards however, we are told by Polybius that
Philopoemen, when commander-in-chief, having some quarrel with the
Lacedaemonians, restored the exiles to the city, and put to death
eighty, or, according to Aristokrates, three hundred and fifty
Spartans. He also pulled down the walls of Sparta, and annexed a large
portion of its territory to Megalopolis, while he forced all those
persons who had been created citizens of Sparta under the rule of the
despots to leave the city and proceed to Achaea, except three hundred.
These, because they refused to obey him and leave Lacedaemon he sold
for slaves, and with the money, as a wanton insult, built a public
portico in Megalopolis. Moreover, in his wrath against the
Lacedaemonians, he did them a most cruel wrong, for he abolished the
Lycurgean system of education and forced them to educate their
children like those of the Achaeans, because he saw that they never
would be humble-minded as long as they lived under the discipline of
Lycurgus. Thus was the haughty city of Sparta brought so low by its
misfortunes as to permit Philopoemen to cut, as it were, its very
sinews, and render it tame and crushed. Afterwards, however, the
citizens obtained permissi