But, after all, the Romans meant to keep a hold on Greece, though they left the cities to themselves for a little while. The Spartans who had been banished by Nabis had not returned home, but lived a life of robbery, which was thought to be favoured by Philopœmen, and this offended those at home, some of whom plundered a town called Las. The Achaians demanded that the guilty should be given up to them for punishment, and a war began, which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in which Philopœmen forgot all but the old enmity between Achaia and Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, pulled down the walls, besides abolishing the laws of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed since the fall of Cleomenes. Many citizens were sent into banishment, and these went to Rome to complain of the Achaians. While they were gone the Messenians rose against the League, while Philopœmen was lying sick of a fever at Argos; but though he was ill, and seventy years old, he collected a small troop of young Megalopolitan horsemen, to join the main army with them. But he met the full force of the Messenians, and while fighting bravely to shelter his young followers, received a blow on the head which stunned him, so that he was made prisoner, and carried to Messene. There his enemies showed him in the theatre, but the people only recollected how noble he was, and how he had defended all Greece from Nabis. So his enemies hurried him away, and put him in an underground dungeon, where, at night, they sent an executioner to carry him a dose of poison. Philopœmen raised himself with difficulty, for he was very weak, and asked the man whether he could tell him what had become of his young Megalopolitan friends. The man replied that he thought they had most of them escaped. “You bring good news,” said Philopœmen; then, swallowing the draught, he laid himself on his back, and, almost instantly died. He is called the Last of the Greeks, for there never was a great man of the old sort after him. [Picture: Livadia, The Ancient Mideia in Argolis] CHAP. XXXVIII.—THE FALL OF GREECE. B.C. 189–146. [Picture: Decorative chapter heading] After the death of Philopœmen there was little real spirit left in the Achaians, and Callicrates, who became the leading man among them, led them to submit themselves to the senate of Rome, and do as it pleased with regard to Sparta and Messene.