16.1
Soon, however, Diophanes, the general of the Achaean league, hearing that the Lacedaemonians were once more agitating for a change, determined to punish them, and the Lacedaemonians determining upon war, were throwing the Peloponnesus into confusion. Here Philopoemen tried to mollify Diophanes and put a stop to his wrath, showing him what the occasion demanded, and that since King Antiochus and the Romans were hovering about in Greece with armies so great, it behoved the general of the league to pay attention to them, and not to stir up domestic troubles, but even to be somewhat oblivious to the transgressions of his colleagues.
16.2
Diophanes, however, paid no heed to this advice, but invaded Laconia along with Titus Flamininus, and marched directly upon the city of Sparta. Incensed at this, Philopoemen ventured upon an act which was not lawful, nor even exactly just, but great and prompted by a great spirit. He went on past them into Sparta, and, private man though he was, shut out therefrom both the general of the Achaean league and the Roman consul, put an end to the disorders in the city, and brought the Lacedaemonians back again into the league, as they were at the outset.
16.3
At a later time, however, when he had some ground for accusation against the Lacedaemonians, as general of the leaguePhilopoemen was for the sixth time general in 188 B.C. Philopoemen brought back its exiles to the city, and put to death eighty Spartans, according to Polybius,In a passage not extant. Livy gives the same number (xxxviii. 33). or according to Aristocrates, three hundred and fifty.
