But vengeance was about to fall on Philopœmen for his haughtiness. For when he was appointed general of the Achæans for the 8th time, he twitted a man not without some renown for having allowed the enemy to capture him alive: and not long after, as there was a dispute between the Messenians and Achæans, he sent Lycortas with an army to ravage Messenia: and himself the third day afterwards, though he was suffering from a fever and was more than 70, hurried on to share in the action of Lycortas, at the head of about 60 cavalry and targeteers. And Lycortas and his army returned home without having done or received any great harm. But Philopœmen, who had been wounded in the head in the action and had fallen off his horse, was taken alive to Messene. And in a meeting which the Messenians immediately held there were many different opinions as to what they should do with him. Dinocrates and the wealthy Messenians were urgent to put him to death: but the popular party were most anxious to save him alive, calling him even the father of all Greece. But Dinocrates in spite of the popular party took Philopœmen off by poison. And Lycortas not long after collected a force from Arcadia and from Achaia and marched against Messene, and the popular party in Messene at once fraternized with them, and all except Dinocrates who were privy to the murder of Philopœmen were put to death. And he committed suicide. And the Arcadians brought the remains of Philopœmen to Megalopolis. CHAPTER LII. And now Greece ceased to produce a stock of distinguished men. Miltiades the son of Cimon, who defeated the barbarians that landed at Marathon, and checked the Persian host, was the first public benefactor of Greece, and Philopœmen the son of Craugis the last. For those who before Miltiades had displayed conspicuous valour, (as Codrus the son of Melanthus, and the Spartan Polydorus, and the Messenian Aristomenes), had all clearly fought for their own nation and not for all Greece. And after Miltiades Leonidas (the son of Anaxandrides) and Themistocles (the son of Neocles) expelled Xerxes from Greece, the latter by his two sea-fights, the former by the action at Thermopylæ. And Aristides the son of Lysimachus, and Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus, who commanded at Platæa, were prevented from being called benefactors of Greece, the latter by his subsequent crimes, the former by his laying tribute on the Greek islanders, for before Aristides all the Greek dominions were exempt from taxation. And Xanthippus the son of Ariphron, in conjunction with Leotychides king of Sparta, destroyed the Persian fleet off Mycale, and Cimon did many deeds to excite the emulation of the Greeks. As for those who won the greatest renown in the Peloponnesian war, one might say that they with their own hands almost ruined Greece. And when Greece was already in pitiful plight, Conon the son of Timotheus and Epaminondas the son of Polymnis