Agis and Cleomenes

But Cleomenes, conjecturing what the speaker wished, said: What meanest thou, Lysandridas? Thou surely canst not bid me give your city back again to you. To which Lysandridas replied: Indeed, that is just what I mean, and I advise thee in thine own interests not to destroy so great a city, hut to fill it with friends and allies who are trusty and true by giving back to the Megalopolitans their native city and becoming the preserver of so large a people.

Accordingly, after a short silence, Cleomenes said: It is difficult to believe that all this will happen, but with us let what makes for good repute always carry the day, rather than what brings gain. And with these words he sent the two men off to Messene attended by a herald from himself, offering to give back their city to the Megalopolitans on condition that they renounce the Achaean cause and be his friends and allies.

However, although Cleomenes made this benevolent and humane offer, Philopoemen would not allow the Megalopolitans to break their pledges to the Achaeans, but denounced Cleomenes on the ground that he sought, not so much to give their city back to its citizens, as rather to get the citizens with their city[*](See the Philopoemen, v. ); then he drove Thearidas and Lysandridas out of Messene. This was that Philopoemen who afterwards became the leader of the Achaeans and won the greatest fame among the Greeks, as I have written in his own Life.

When tidings of these things were brought to Cleomenes, although he had taken strict care that the city should be inviolate and unharmed, so that no one took even the least thing without being detected, he was now so incensed and embittered that he plundered it, and sent its statues and pictures off to Sparta; then, after completely demolishing most and the largest portions of the city, he marched back towards home, being in fear of Antigonus and the Achaeans.