Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
command in it as his great business, always coveted to be employed.
And this agrees with what he once aptly said of king Ptolemy.
Somebody was praising him for keeping his army and himself in an
admirable state of discipline and exercise: "And what praise,"
replied Philopoemen, "for a king of his years, to be always
preparing, and never performing?" However, the Megalopolitans,
thinking themselves betrayed, took it so ill, that they were about to
banish him. But the Achaeans put an end to that design, by sending
their General, Aristaeus, to Megalopolis, who, though he were at
difference with Philopoemen about affairs of the commonwealth, yet
would not suffer him to be banished. Philopoemen finding himself
upon this account out of favor with his citizens, induced divers of
the little neighboring places to renounce obedience to them,
suggesting to them to urge that from the beginning they were not
subject to their taxes, or laws, or any way under their command. In
these pretenses he openly took their part, and fomented seditious
movements amongst the Achaeans in general against Megalopolis. But
these things happened a while after.
While he stayed in Crete, in the service of the Gortynians, he made
war not like a Peloponnesian and Arcadian, fairly in the open field,
but fought with them at their own weapon, and turning their
stratagems and tricks against themselves, showed them they played
craft against skill, and were but children to an experienced soldier.
Having acted here with great bravery, and great reputation to
himself, he returned into Peloponnesus, where he found Philip beaten
by Titus Quintius, and Nabis at war both with the Romans and
Achaeans. He was at once chosen general against Nabis, but venturing
to fight by sea, met, like Epaminondas, with a result very contrary
to the general expectation, and his own former reputation.
Epaminondas, however, according to some statements, was backward by
design, unwilling to give his countrymen an appetite for the
advantages of the sea, lest from good soldiers, they should by
little and little turn, as Plato says, to ill mariners. And
therefore he returned from Asia and the Islands without doing any
thing, on purpose. Whereas Philopoemen, thinking his skill in
land-service would equally avail at sea, learned how great a part of
valor experience is, and how much it imports in the management of
things to be accustomed to them. For he was not only put to the
worst in the fight for want of skill, but having rigged up an old
ship, which had been a famous vessel forty years before, and shipped
his citizens in her, she foundering, he was in danger of losing them
all. But finding the enemy, as if he had been driven out of the sea,
had, in contempt of him, besieged Gythium, he presently set sail
again, and, taking them unexpectedly, dispersed and careless after
their victory, landed in the night, burnt their camp, and killed a
great number.
A few days after, as he was marching through a rough country, Nabis
came suddenly upon him. The Achaeans were dismayed, and in such
difficult ground where the enemy had secured the advantage, despaired
to get off with safety. Philopoemen made a little halt, and, viewing
the ground, soon made it appear, that the one important thing in war
is skill in drawing up an army. For by advancing only a few paces,
and, without any confusion or trouble, altering his order according
to the nature of the place, he immediately relieved himself from
every difficulty, and then charging, put the enemy to flight. But
when he saw they fled, not towards the city, but dispersed every man
a different way all over the field, which for wood and hills, brooks
and hollows was not passable by horse, he sounded a retreat, and
encamped by broad daylight. Then foreseeing the enemy would endeavor
to steal scatteringly into the city in the dark, he posted strong
parties of the Achaeans all along the watercourses and sloping ground
near the walls. Many of Nabis's men fell into their hands. For
returning not in a body, but as the chance of flight had disposed of
every one, they were caught like birds ere they could enter into the
town.
These actions obtained him distinguished marks of affection and honor
in all the theaters of Greece, but not without the secret ill-will of
Titus Flamininus, who was naturally eager for glory, and thought it
but reasonable a consul of Rome should be otherwise esteemed by the
Achaeans, than a common Arcadian; especially as there was no
comparison between what he, and what Philopoemen had done for them,
he having by one proclamation restored all Greece, as much as had
been subject to Philip and the Macedonians, to liberty. After this,
Titus made peace with Nabis, and Nabis was circumvented and slain by
the Aetolians. Things being then in confusion at Sparta, Philopoemen
laid hold of the occasion, and coming upon them with an army,
prevailed with some by persuasion, with others by fear, till he
brought the whole city over to the Achaeans. As it was no small
matter for Sparta to become a member of Achaea, this action gained
him infinite praise from the Achaeans, for having strengthened their
confederacy by the addition of so great and powerful a city, and not
a little good-will from the nobility of Sparta itself, who hoped they
had now procured an ally, who would defend their freedom.
Accordingly, having raised a sum of one hundred and twenty silver
talents by the sale of the house and goods of Nabis, they decreed him
the money, and sent a deputation in the name of the city to present
it. But here the honesty of Philopoemen showed itself clearly to be
a real, uncounterfeited virtue. For first of all, there was not a
man among them who would undertake to make him this offer of a
present, but every one excusing himself, and shifting it off upon his
fellow, they laid the office at last on Timolaus, with whom he had
lodged at Sparta. Then Timolaus came to Megalopolis, and was
entertained by Philopoemen; but struck into admiration with the
dignity of his life and manners, and the simplicity of his habits,
judging him to be utterly inaccessible to any such considerations, he
said nothing, but pretending other business, returned without a word
mentioned of the present. He was sent again, and did just as
formerly. But the third time with much ado, and faltering in his
words, he acquainted Philopoemen with the good-will of the city of
Sparta to him. Philopoemen listened obligingly and gladly; and then
went himself to Sparta, where he advised them, not to bribe good men
and their friends, of whose virtue they might be sure without charge
to themselves; but to buy off and silence ill citizens, who
disquieted the city with their seditious speeches in the public
assemblies; for it was better to bar liberty of speech in enemies,
than friends. Thus it appeared how much Philopoemen was above
bribery.
Diophanes being afterwards General of the Achaeans, and hearing the
Lacedaemonians were bent on new commotions, resolved to chastise
them; they, on the other side, being set upon war, were embroiling
all Peloponnesus. Philopoemen on this occasion did all he could to
keep Diophanes quiet and to make him sensible that as the times went,
while Antiochus and the Romans were disputing their pretensions with
vast armies in the heart of Greece, it concerned a man in his
position to keep a watchful eye over them, and dissembling, and
putting up with any less important grievances, to preserve all quiet
at home. Diophanes would not be ruled, but joined with Titus, and
both together falling into Laconia, marched directly to Sparta.
Philopoemen, upon this, took, in his indignation, a step which
certainly was not lawful, nor in the strictest sense just, but boldly
and loftily conceived. Entering into the town himself, he, a private
man as he was, refused admission to both the consul of Rome, and the
General of the Achaeans, quieted the disorders in the city, and
reunited it on the same terms as before to the Achaean confederacy.
Yet afterwards, when he was General himself, upon some new
misdemeanor of the Lacedaemonians, he brought back those who had been
banished, put, as Polybius writes, eighty, according to Aristocrates
three hundred and fifty, Spartans to death, razed the walls, took
away a good part of their territory and transferred it to the
Megalopolitans, forced out of the country and carried into Achaea all
who had been made citizens of Sparta by tyrants, except three
thousand who would not submit to banishment. These he sold for
slaves, and with the money, as if to insult over them, built a
colonnade at Megalopolis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the
Lacedaemonians in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a
most oppressive and arbitrary action, he abolished the laws of
Lycurgus, and forced them to educate their children, and live after
the manner of the Achaeans; as though, while they kept to the
discipline of Lycurgus, there was no humbling their haughty spirits.
In their present distress and adversity they allowed Philopoemen thus
to cut the sinews of their commonwealth asunder, and behaved
themselves humbly and submissively. But afterwards in no long time,
obtaining the support of the Romans, they abandoned their new Achaean
citizenship; and as much as in so miserable and ruined a condition
they could, reestablished their ancient discipline.
When the war betwixt Antiochus and the Romans broke out in Greece,
Philopoemen was a private man. He repined grievously, when he saw
Antiochus lay idle at Chalcis, spending his time in unseasonable
courtship and weddings, while his men lay dispersed in several towns,
without order or commanders, and minding nothing but their pleasures.
He complained much that he was not himself in office, and said he
envied the Romans their victory; and that if he had had the fortune
to be then in command, he would have surprised and killed the whole
army in the taverns.
When Antiochus was overcome, the Romans pressed harder upon Greece,
and encompassed the Achaeans with their power; the popular leaders in
the several cities yielded before them; and their power speedily,
under the divine guidance, advanced to the consummation due to it in
the revolutions of fortune. Philopoemen, in this conjuncture,
carried himself like a good pilot in a high sea, sometimes shifting
sail, and sometimes yielding, but still steering steady; and omitting
no opportunity nor effort to keep all who were considerable, whether
for eloquence or riches, fast to the defense of their common liberty.
Aristaenus, a Megalopolitan of great credit among the Achaeans, but
always a favorer of the Romans, saying one day in the senate, that
the Romans should not be opposed, or displeased in any way,
Philopoemen heard him with an impatient silence; but at last, not
able to hold longer, said angrily to him, "And why be in such haste,
wretched man, to behold the end of Greece?" Manius, the Roman
consul, after the defeat of Antiochus, requested the Achaeans to
restore the banished Lacedaemonians to their country, which motion
was seconded and supported by all the interest of Titus. But
Philopoemen crossed it, not from ill-will to the men, but that they
might be beholden to him and the Achaeans, not to Titus and the
Romans. For when he came to be General himself, he restored them.
So impatient was his spirit of any subjection, and so prone his
nature to contest everything with men in power.
Being now threescore and ten, and the eighth time General, he was in
hope to pass in quiet, not only the year of his magistracy, but his
remaining life. For as our diseases decline, as it is supposed, with
our declining bodily strength, so the quarreling humor of the Greeks