The whole audience at once turned towards Philopoemen, and clapped their hands with delight. It seemed to them that in this valiant warrior the ancient glory of Greece had returned, and for the time some of the old-time spirit came back. But, despite this momentary glow, the sun of Grecian freedom and glory was near its setting. A more dangerous enemy than Macedonia had arisen. Rome, which Pyrrhus had gone to Italy to seek, had its armies now in Greece itself, and the independence of that country would soon be no more. The next exploit of Philopoemen had to do with Messenia. Nabis, the new Spartan king, had taken that city at a time when Philopoemen was out of command, the generalship of the League not being permanent. He tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achaeans, to go to the relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope. Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very wind of his coming won the town. Nabis, hearing that Philopoemen was near at hand, slipped hastily out of the city by the opposite gates, glad to get away in safety. He escaped, but Messenia was recovered. The martial spirit of Philopoemen next took him to Crete, where fighting was to be had to his taste. Yet he left his native city of Megalopolis so pressed by the enemy that its people were forced to sow grain in their very streets. However, he came back at length, met Nabis in the field, rescued the army from a dangerous situation, and put the enemy to flight. Soon after he made peace with Sparta, and achieved a remarkable triumph in inducing that great and famous city to join the Achaean League. In truth, the nobles of Sparta, glad to have so important an ally, sent Philopoemen a valuable present. But such was his reputation for honor that for a time no man could be found who dared offer it to him; and when at length the offer was made he went to Sparta himself, and advised its nobles, if they wanted any one to bribe, to let it not be good men, but those ill citizens whose seditious voices needed to be silenced. In the end Sparta was destined to suffer at the hands of its incorruptible ally, it having revolted from the League. Philopoemen marched into Laconia, led his army unopposed to Sparta, and took possession of that famous seat of Mars, within which no hostile foot had hitherto been set. He razed its walls to the ground, put to death those who had stirred the city to rebellion, and took away a great part of its territory, which he gave to Megalopolis. Those who had been made citizens of Sparta by tyrants he drove from the country, and three thousand who refused to go he sold into slavery; and, as a further insult, with the money received from their sale he built a colonnade at Megalopolis.