36. Before they transacted any business, alarm was excited in the Achæans, accompanied by the reflection, how unlikely the dispute was to receive impartial judgment, when they saw in company with the ambassadors Areus and Alcibiades, whom in their last council they had condemned to death; yet none of them dared to utter a word. Appius acquainted them that the senate was much displeased at those matters, of which the Lacedæmonians made complaint before them; “first, the massacre that took place at Compasium of those who, in obedience to the summons of Philopœmen, came to stand a trial; then after such barbarity had been exercised towards men, that their cruelty might be felt in every part, the having demolished the wall of that famous city, having abrogated its laws of the greatest antiquity, and abolished the discipline of Lycurgus, so famed throughout the world.” After Appius had spoken to this effect, Lycortas, both because he was prætor and because he was of the faction of Philopœmen, the adviser of all that was done at Lacedæemon, answered him thus: “Appius Claudius, our speech before you is attended with more difficulties than we had lately before the senate at Rome; for then we had to answer the accusations of the Lacedæmonians, but now we stand accused by yourselves, before whom our cause is to be heard. But to this disadvantage of situation we submit with this hope, that you will hear us with the temper of a judge, laying aside the character of an advocate, in which you just now appeared. I at least, though the matters of which the Lacedæmonians complained formerly in this place, before Quintus Cæcilius, and afterwards at Rome, have been just recapitulated by you, yet shall consider myself as answering for them, not to you, but before you. You charge us with the murder of those men, who being called out by the prætor, Philopœmen, to trial, were put to death. This I think a charge of such a nature, that it ought not to be advanced against us, either by you, Romans, or by any in your presence. Why so? Because it was written in the treaty with you, that the Lacedæmonians should not intermeddle with the cities on the coast. At the time when they, taking up arms, seized by assault in the night those towns with which they had been forbidden to interfere; if Titus Quintius, if a Roman army had been in Peloponnesus, as formerly, the captured and oppressed inhabitants would surely have fled to them for relief. As you were at a great distance, to whom else would they fly but to us, your allies, whom they had seen at a former time bringing aid to Gythium; whom they had seen in conjunction with you, besieging Lacedæmon on their account? In your stead, therefore, we undertook a just and rightful war. And when other men approve of this step, and even the Lacedæmonians cannot censure it; the gods themselves, also, by giving us the victory, have shown their approbation of it; how then can acts done