After the defeat of Antiochus the Romans began to tighten their hold upon Greece, and to absorb the Achæan league. Many of the popular leaders took their side, and the growing power of Rome was fated by the divine blessing before long to become absolute in Greece. Philopœmen, like a skilful pilot, struggling against a rough sea, was often compelled to yield and give way for a time, yet as he was utterly opposed to the Romans he did his best to induce the most influential men to defend the liberties of Greece. Aristænetus of Megapolis, a man of great influence with the Achæans, who urged them in the public assembly not to oppose or to thwart the Romans in anything, was listened to by Philopœmen for some time in silence, until at length he was moved to exclaim, "My good sir, why be in such a hurry to behold the end of Greece?" When Manius the Roman consul had conquered Antiochus, he begged the Achæans to permit the Lacedæmonian exiles to return. Titus Flamininus seconded this request, but Philopœmen opposed it; not because he had any quarrel with the exiles, but because he wished their restoration to be effected by himself and the Achæans, of their own free will, not as a favour to Flamininus and the Romans. Afterwards, when commander-in-chief, he himself restored them. Thus did his high spirit make him impatient of control and authority. XVIII. When he was in his seventieth year, and eighth term of office as commander-in-chief, he might reasonably expect to finish not only his year of office, but also the rest of his life in peace; for just as in human bodies as their strength wastes away the violence of their diseases abates, so in the Greek states as their power failed their quarrels gradually ceased. However some Nemesis overtook him, as it does a too successful athlete just at the termination of his course. It is said that when some persons in society were praising a man who was thought to be a good general, Philopœmen said, "How can you think that man worth consideration, who was taken by his enemy alive."