Sparta

The regulation of the affairs of the Greek states, as respected both
their mutual relations and their internal condition, was attended with
difficulty. The most urgent matter was the war which had been carried
on between the Spartans and Achaeans since 550, in which the duty of
mediating necessarily fell to the Romans. But after various attempts
to induce Nabis to yield, and particularly to give up the city of
Argos belonging to the Achaean league, which Philip had surrendered to
him, no course at last was left to Flamininus but to have war declared
against the obstinate petty robber-chieftain, who reckoned on the
well-known grudge of the Aetolians against the Romans and on the
advance of Antiochus into Europe, and pertinaciously refused to
restore Argos. War was declared, accordingly, by all the Hellenes at
a great diet in Corinth, and Flamininus advanced into the Peloponnesus
accompanied by the fleet and the Romano-allied army, which included a
contingent sent by Philip and a division of Lacedaemonian emigrants
under Agesipolis, the legitimate king of Sparta (559). In order to
crush his antagonist immediately by an overwhelming superiority of
force, no less than 50,000 men were brought into the field, and,
the other towns being disregarded, the capital itself was at once
invested; but the desired result was not attained. Nabis had sent
into the field a considerable army amounting to 15,000 men, of whom
5000 were mercenaries, and he had confirmed his rule afresh by a
complete reign of terror--by the execution -en masse- of the officers
and inhabitants of the country whom he suspected. Even when he
himself after the first successes of the Roman army and fleet resolved
to yield and to accept the comparatively favourable terms of peace
proposed by Flamininus, "the people," that is to say the gang of
robbers whom Nabis had domiciled in Sparta, not without reason
apprehensive of a reckoning after the victory, and deceived by an
accompaniment of lies as to the nature of the terms of peace and as to
the advance of the Aetolians and Asiatics, rejected the peace offered
by the Roman general, so that the struggle began anew. A battle took
place in front of the walls and an assault was made upon them; they
were already scaled by the Romans, when the setting on fire of the
captured streets compelled the assailants to retire.

Settlement of Spartan Affairs

At last the obstinate resistance came to an end. Sparta