received with general approbation, he added,--"It is but reasonable, however, that while I am employed in protecting your property by my arms, my own should not be deprived of protection; therefore, if you think proper, provide such a number of troops as will be sufficient to secure Orcus, Chalcis, and Corinth; that my affairs being in a state of safety behind me, I may without anxiety make war on Nabis and the Lacedaemonians." The Achaeans were not ignorant of the tendency of this so kind promise, and of his proffered assistance against the Lacedaemonians; that his purpose was to draw the Achaean youth out of Peloponnesus as hostages, in order to implicate the nation in a war with the Romans. Cycliades, the Achaean praetor, thinking that it was irrelevant to develope the matter by argument, said nothing more than that it was not allowable, according to the laws of the Achaeans, to take any matters into consideration except those on which they had been called together: and the decree for levying an army against Nabis being passed, he dismissed the assembly, after having presided in it with much resolution and public spirit, and until that day having been reckoned among the partisans of the king. Philip, disappointed in a high expectation, after having collected a few voluntary soldiers, returned to Corinth, and from thence into the territories of Athens. 26. In those days in which Philip was in Achaia, Philocles, one of the king's generals, marching from Euboea with two thousand Thracians and Macedonians, in order to lay waste the territories of the Athenians, crossed the forest of Cithaeron opposite to Eleusis. Despatching half of his troops, make depredations in all parts of the country, he himself lay concealed with the remainder in a place convenient for an ambush; in order that, if any attack should be made from the fort at Eleusis on his men employed in plundering, he might suddenly fall upon the enemy unawares, and while they were in disorder. His stratagem did not escape discovery: wherefore calling back the soldiers, who had gone different ways in pursuit of booty, and drawing them up in order, he advanced to assault the fort at Eleusis; but being repulsed from thence with many wounds, he formed a junction with Philip on his return from Achaia. The storming of this fort was also attempted by the king in person: but the Roman ships coming from Piraeeus, and a body of forces thrown into the fort, compelled him to relinquish the design. On this the king, dividing his army, sent Philocles with one part to Athens, and went himself with the other to Piraeeus; that, while his general, by advancing to the walls and threatening an assault, might keep the Athenians within the city, he might be able to make himself master of the harbour, when left with only a slight garrison. But he found the attack of Piraeeus no less difficult than that of Eleusis, the same persons for the most part acting in its defence.