Greek Texts & Translations

But, nevertheless, Philopoemen too was to be punished for his pride. After being appointed commander of the Achaeans for the eighth time, he reproached a man of no little distinction for having been captured alive by the enemy. Now at this time the Achaeans had a grievance against the Messenians, and Philopoemen, despatching Lycortas with the army to lay waste the land of the Messenians, was very anxious two or three days later, in spite of his seventy years and a severe attack of fever, to take his share in the expedition of Lycortas. He led about sixty horsemen and targeteers.

Lycortas, however, and his army were already on their way back to their country, having neither suffered great harm nor inflicted it on the Messenians. Philopoemen, wounded in the head during the battle, fell from his horse and was taken alive to Messene. A meeting of the assembly was immediately held, at which the most widely divergent opinions were expressed.

Deinocrates, and all the Messenians whose wealth made them influential, urged that Philopoemen should be put to death; but the popular party were keen on saving his life, calling him Father, and more than Father, ^note of all the Greek people. But Deinocrates, after all, and in spite of Messenian opposition, was to bring about the death of Philopoemen, for he sent poison in to him. ^note

Shortly afterwards Lycortas gathered a force from Arcadia and Achaia and marched against Messene. The Messenian populace at once went over to the side of the Arcadians, and those responsible for the death of Philopoemen were caught and punished, all except Deinocrates, who perished by his own hand. The Arcadians also brought back to Megalopolis the bones of Philopoemen.

Later than Miltiades, Leonidas, the son of Anaxandrides, and Themistocles, the son of Neocles, repulsed Xerxes from Greece, ^note Themistocles by the two sea-fights, Leonidas by the action at Thermopylae. But Aristeides the son of Lysimachus, and Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, ^note commanders at Plataea, were debarred from being called benefactors of Greece, Pausanias by his subsequent sins, Aristeides by his imposition of tribute on the island Greeks; for before Aristeides all the Greeks were immune from tribute.

Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron, with Leotychidaes the king of Sparta destroyed the Persian fleet at Mycale, ^note and with Cimon accomplished many enviable achievements on behalf of the Greeks. But those who took part in the Peloponnesian war against Athens, especially the most distinguished of them, might be said to be murderers, almost wreckers, of Greece.

When the Greek nation was reduced to a miserable condition, it recovered under the efforts of Conon, ^note the son of Timotheus, and of Epaminondas, the son of Polymnis, who drove out the Lacedaemonian garrisons and governors, and put down the boards of ten, ^note Conon from the islands and coasts, Epaminondas from the cities of the interior. By founding cities too, of no small fame, Messene and Arcadian Megalopolis, Epaminondas made Greece more famous.

I reckon Leosthenes also and Aratus benefactors of all the Greeks. Leosthenes, in spite of Alexander's opposition, brought back safe by sea to Greece the force of Greek mercenaries in Persia, about fifty thousand in number, who had descended to the coast. As for Aratus, I have related his exploits in my history of Sicyon. ^note