raised his fame throughout Greece, that he should have won over so famous and powerful a city, for Sparta formed a most important member of the league.  He also gained the good will of the Lacedaemonian nobles, who hoped that he would protect their newly-won liberty.  They sold the house and property of Nabis, and decreed that the money, amounting to a hundred and twenty talents, should be presented to him by a deputation.  On this occasion Philopoemen showed himself to be a man of real virtue.  At the interview none of the Spartans liked to propose to him to receive the money, but they excused themselves, and made his own especial friend Timolaus undertake to do this.  Timolaus, however, when he reached Megalopolis, and living in the house of Philopoemen had an opportunity of observing the noble simplicity of his character and his lofty integrity, in the familiar intercourse of private life, dared not mention the bribe, but gave some other excuse for his visit and returned home.  He was sent a second time, with the same result.  On a third visit he with great hesitation broached the subject.  Philopoemen listened to him without anger, and sent him back to the Spartans with the advice that they should not corrupt their friends, whose services they could obtain gratis, but keep their money to bribe those who endeavoured to countermine their city in the public assembly of the Achaean league, as, 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,