[Sidenote: The false pretences of Heracleides at Rhodes.] +5.+ The Prytanies of Rhodes were now distrustful of Philip, owing to his treacherous policy in Crete,[51] and they began to suspect that Heracleides was his agent.... But Heracleides came before them and explained the reasons which had caused him to fly from Philip.... Philip was anxious above everything that the Rhodians should not discover his purpose in these transactions; whereby he succeeded in freeing Heracleides from suspicion.... [Sidenote: Magna est veritas.] Nature, as it seems to me, has ordained that Truth should be a most mighty goddess among men, and has endowed her with extraordinary power. At least, I notice that though at times everything combines to crush her, and every kind of specious argument is on the side of falsehood, she somehow or another insinuates herself by her own intrinsic virtue into the souls of men. Sometimes she displays her power at once; and sometimes, though obscured for a length of time, she at last prevails and overpowers falsehood. Such was the case with Heracleides when he came from king Philip to Rhodes....[52] Damocles, who was sent with Pythio as a spy upon the Romans, was a person of ability, and possessed of many endowments fitting him for the conduct of affairs.... NABIS, TYRANT OF SPARTA, B.C. 207-192 [Sidenote: The character of Nabis’s tyranny.] +6.+ Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, being now in the third year of his reign, ventured upon no undertaking of importance, owing to the recent defeat of Machanidas by the Achaeans; but employed himself in laying the foundations of a long and grinding tyranny. He destroyed the last remains of the old Spartan nobles; drove into banishment all men eminent for wealth or ancestral glory; and distributed their property and wives among the chief men of those who remained, or among his own mercenary soldiers. These last were composed of murderers, housebreakers, foot-pads, and burglars. For this was, generally speaking, the class of men which he collected out of all parts of the world, whose own country was closed to them owing to their crimes and felonies. As he put himself forward as the patron and king of such wretches, and employed them as attendants and bodyguards, there is evidently no cause for surprise that his impious character and reign should have been long remembered. For, besides this, he was not content with driving the citizens into banishment, but took care no place should be secure, and no refuge safe for the exiles. Some he caused to be pursued and killed on the road, while others he dragged from their place of retreat and murdered. Finally, in the cities where they were living, he hired the houses next door to these banished men, wherever they might be, by means of agents who were not suspected; and then sent Cretans into these houses, who made breaches in the party walls, and through them, or through such windows as already existed, shot down the