One Philopoemen, for some ten years a mercenary leader in Crete and now in his late fifties, had been trained to his career of arms by the Academic philosophers Ecdelus and Demophanes.

Elected federal cavalry commander for 210/209 on his return to Achaea, his reorganized troops defeat the Aetolians on the Elean frontier.

The Romans have meanwhile countered the moves of Philip V of Macedon by an alliance with the Greek cities of the Aetolian League, but Philip has effectively aided his allies.

The Romans in 207 withdraw their armies from Greece.

The neutral trading powers are still trying to arrange a peace.

Philip had met at Elateia with the same would be peacemakers from Egypt and Rhodes, who had been at the meeting in Heraclea, and again in the spring of 207 BCE, but to no avail.

Representatives of Egypt, Rhodes, Byzantium, Chios, Mytilene and perhaps Athens also meet again this spring with the Aetolians.

The war is going Philip's way, but the Aetolians, although now abandoned by both Pergamon and Rome, are not yet ready to make peace on Philip's terms.

Machanidas, Tyrant of Sparta, was originally, perhaps, the leader of a band of Tarentine mercenaries in the pay of the Spartan government.

The history of Lacedaemon at this period is so obscure that the means by which Machanidas obtained the tyranny are unknown.

He was probably at first associated with Pelops, son and successor of Lycurgus on the double throne of Sparta; but he eclipsed or expelled his colleague, and for his crimes and the terror he inspired he is termed emphatically "the tyrant." (tyrannus Lacedaemoniorum, Livy 27.29.9 )

Like his predecessor Lycurgus, Machanidas has no hereditary or plausible title to the crown, but, unlike him, he respects neither the ephors nor the laws, and rules by the swords of his mercenaries alone.

Argos and the Achaean League find him a restless and relentless neighbor, whom they cannot resist without the aid of Macedon.

Rome at this crisis, the eleventh year of the Second Punic War, is anxious to detain Philip V; and as usual, unscrupulous in the choice of its instruments, the republic employs him as an active and able ally.

Machanidas reveres the religious views of Greece as little as the political rights of his own subjects.

Towards the close of the Aetolian War, in 207 BCE, while the Greek states are negotiating the terms of peace, and the Eleans are making preparations for the next Olympic festival, Machanidas projects an inroad into the sacred territory of Elis.

The design is frustrated by the timely arrival of the king of Macedon in the Peloponnesus, and Machanidas withdraws precipitately to Sparta, but the project marks both the man and the era—an era equally void of personal, national, and ancestral faith.

Philopoemen, captain-general of the cavalry of the Achaean league, after eight months' careful preparation, in 207 BCE delivers Greece from Machanidas.

The Achaean and Lacedaemonian armies meet between Mantineia and Tegea.

Machanidas routs and chases from the field the mercenaries of Philopoemen.

They pursue, however, too eagerly and when Machanidas leads his men back to the battle the outnumbered Spartan infantry have been defeated and the Achaeans are strongly positioned behind a water-filled ditch.

Going back on to the attack, Machanidas is dismounted as he attempts to leap his horse over the ditch and is slain.

The Achaeans, allies of Macedonia, are victorious.

Philip forces an independent settlement upon Aetolia in 206 BCE following the Roman withdrawal from Greece.

Macedon concludes the war with Rome in 205 BCE by the Peace of Phoenice on favorable terms that allow Phillip to keep his conquests in Illyria.

The Spartan tyrant Nabis, who has deposed Machanidas as regent for the very young Pelops and styled himself king, has carried on the revolutionary tradition of Kings Agis IV and Cleomenes III. (Since ancient accounts of him are mainly abusive, the details of his laws remain obscure, but it is certain that he confiscated a great deal of property and enfranchised many helots.)

Overshadowed by the struggle between Rome and Philip V, Nabis has adroitly maintained his power.

After the Peace of Phoenice between Rome and Macedon, he goes to war in 205 with the Achaean League.

Philopoemen, the league's general in 206/205 BCE, rescues Messene from the Spartans, routing Nabis and his forces.

The Treaty of Phoenice prohibits Philip from expanding westward into Illyria or the Adriatic Sea.

The king therefore turns his attentions eastwards to the Aegean Sea, where he starts to build a large fleet.

Philip sees two ways of shaking Rhodes' dominance of the sea: piracy and war.

Deciding to use both methods, he encourages his allies to begin pirate attacks against Rhodian ships.

Philip persuades the Cretans, who have been involved in piracy for a long time, the Aetolians, and the Spartans to take part in the piracy.

The lure for these nations is the promise of vast loot from captured Rhodian vessels.

He sends the Aetolian freebooter Dicaearchus on an extensive raid through the Aegean, during the course of which he plunders the Cyclades and Rhodian territories.