Philopoemen

Cleander was a man of the highest lineage and greatest influence among the citizens of Mantineia, but he met with reverses and was exiled from his native city. He then betook himself to Megalopolis, chiefly because of Craugis, the father of Philopoemen, a man in every way illustrious, and attached to him by ties of personal friendship.

As long as Craugis lived, Cleander’s wants were all supplied, and when Craugis died, Cleander, wishing to requite him for his hospitality, undertook the rearing of his orphan son, just as Homer says that Achilles was reared by Phoenix,[*](Cf. Iliad, ix. 438 ff. ) so that the boy’s character took on from the very outset a noble and kingly mould and growth. But as soon as Philopoemen had ceased to be a boy, Ecdemus and Megalophanes, of Megalopolis, were put in charge of him.[*](A brief biography of Philopoemen may be found in Pausanias, viii. 49-51. It agrees, in the main, with that of Plutarch. Philopoemen was born about 252 B.C.) They had been comrades of Arcesilaüs at the Academy, and beyond all men of their day had brought philosophy to bear upon political action and affairs of state.

They freed their own native city from tyranny, by secretly procuring men to kill Aristodemus; they joined with Aratus in expelling Nicocles the tyrant of Sicyon;[*](See the Aratus, ii.-x. ) and at the request of the people of Cyrene, whose city was full of confusion and political distemper, they sailed thither, introduced law and order, and arranged matters in the city most happily.

They themselves, however, counted the education of Philopoemen also among their many achievements, believing that their philosophical teachings had made him a common benefit to Greece. For since he was the child, as it were, of her late old age and succeeded to the virtues of her ancient commanders, Greece loved him surpassingly, and as his reputation grew, increased his power. And a certain Roman, in praising him, called him the last of the Greeks,[*](See the Aratus, xxiv. 2. ) implying that Greece produced no great man after him, nor one worthy of her.