Pausanias Analysis

Since the Achaeans by this time were directing their gaze upon him and entrusting every matter into his hands, he altered for their appointed foot-soldiers the character of their arms. For whereas they wore small spears and shields rather elongated like the Celtic targets or the Persian wicker shields, he persuaded them instead to put on breastplates, to equip themselves with greaves, and to use Argolic shields and long spears.

When Machanidas rose up as tyrant in Sparta, war once more broke out between the Achaeans and the Spartans led by Machanidas. Philopoemen commanded the Achaean forces. A battle took place near Mantineia, in which the Spartan skirmishers defeated the lightly armed Achaeans, and Machanidas himself pursued them in their flight. However, Philopoemen, commanding the phalanx of infantry, routed the Spartan hoplites. As Machanidas was returning from the pursuit, Philopoemen encountered and slew him. For the Spartans, though defeated in battle, their fortune afterward proved greater than their disaster, since by his death they were freed from the tyrant.

Not long after, while the Argives were celebrating the Nemean games, Philopoemen was present at the contest of the citharoedes. Pylades, a man of Megalopolis by birth and esteemed as the most distinguished citharoedus of his time, who had won a Pythian victory, was singing then the "Persae," a composition of Timotheus of Miletus, beginning his song with the words, "Fashioning glorious and great adornment of freedom for Greece." He turned his gaze towards Philopoemen as he sang these very words, and by their applause, the Greek audience directed the performance towards him. I have heard of a similar incident occurring at Olympia concerning Themistocles; for there, too, the theater rose in honor of Themistocles.

Philip, son of Demetrius, king of Macedonia, who also killed Aratus the Sicyonian with poison, sent men to Megalopolis, instructing them to murder Philopoemen. But having failed in the attempt, he was thereafter hated throughout the whole of Greece. Moreover, the Thebans, who had defeated the Megarians in battle and were already mounting the walls of Megara, were deceived by the Megarians, who pretended that Philopoemen had come into their city. They became so cautious that they withdrew back to their homeland, leaving their campaign unfinished.

In Lacedaemon, however, Nabis again arose as a tyrant, who was the first among the Peloponnesians to attack the Messenians. He fell upon them by night, capturing their city—except the acropolis—while they were completely unprepared and unsuspecting of the assault. But on the following day, when Philopoemen arrived with an army, Nabis was forced by treaty to withdraw from Messene.

When Philopoemen's term as general ended and other men had been chosen to lead the Achaeans, he once again crossed over to Crete and assisted the Gortynians, who were hard pressed by war. However, as the Arcadians expressed anger at his absence, he returned from Crete, arriving at the time when the Romans had resumed their war against Nabis.

When the Roman naval forces had made preparations against Nabis, Philopoemen, eager to take part in the engagement, intended to join them. However, being entirely inexperienced in maritime matters, he boarded a trireme which had already been launched without being noticed, thus causing the Romans and other allies to recall the verses which Homer in his catalogue composed regarding the Arcadians' ignorance of the sea.

Not many days after the naval battle, Philopoemen and the force accompanying him, taking advantage of a moonless night, attacked and set fire to the camp of the Lacedaemonians at Gythium. Here, Nabis caught Philopoemen himself and the Arcadians around him in difficult terrain. These Arcadians, though otherwise courageous soldiers, were few in number.

Philopoemen, having reversed the order in which he had previously arranged his troops during the retreat, managed to turn the strongest positions toward himself rather than allowing them to remain with the enemy. After winning the battle against Nabis and killing many of the Lacedaemonians in the night, he gained even greater renown among the Greeks.

After these events, Nabis, who had obtained a truce from the Romans for a specified period, met his end before the agreed cessation of hostilities had expired. He was killed by a man from Calydon, who had arrived ostensibly as an ally, but who, in practice, was hostile and had been sent specifically for this purpose by the Aetolians.