under the laws of war come under civil disquisition? Of these acts, however, the greatest part nowise affect us. The summoning to trial men, who had excited the populace to arms, who had stormed and plundered the towns on the coast, who had murdered the principal inhabitants, was our act; but the putting them to death when they were coming into the camp was yours, Areus and Alcibiades, who now, since it is the will of the gods, arraign us, and not ours. The Lacedæmonian exiles (in the number of whom, these two men then were) were then in our camp, and believing that they were the objects of attack because they had chosen the maritime towns for their residence, made an assault on those by whose means they had been banished, and who they perceived with indignation would not suffer them even to grow old in exile with safety. Lacedænonians therefore, not Achæans, slew Lacedæmonians; nor is it of any consequence to dispute, whether they were slain justly or unjustly. 37. “But then, Achæans, the abolition of the laws and ancient discipline of Lycurgus, with the demolition of the walls, are unquestionably your acts: now how can both these charges be brought forward by the same persons, since the walls of Lacedæmon were built, not by Lycurgus, but a few years ago, for the purpose of subverting the discipline of Lycurgus? The tyrants erected them lately as a fortress and defence for themselves, not for the state; and if Lycurgus should rise this day from the dead, he would rejoice at their ruins, and would say that he now acknowledged his country, and ancient Sparta. You ought not to have waited for Philopœmen, or the Achæans; you should have removed and razed, with your own hands, every vestige of tyranny; for these were the foul scars of slavery. And as during almost eight hundred years, while ye were without walls, ye were free, and for some time even chiefs of Greece; so, after being bound with walls, as with fetters, you were slaves for one hundred years. As to what concerns the abrogating their laws, I conceive that the tyrants took away the ancient laws of Lacedæmon, and that we did not deprive them of their own laws which they did not possess, but gave them ours; nor did we neglect the interests of their state, when we made it a member of our council, and incorporated it with ourselves, so that the whole Peloponnesus should form one body and one council. If we were living under laws different from what we imposed on them, in that case I think they might complain of being treated unfairly, and consequently be displeased. I know, Appius Claudius, that the kind of discourse which I have hitherto used is not proper either for allies, addressing their allies, or for an independent nation; but, in truth, for slaves pleading before their masters. For if the herald’s proclamation, in which you ordered the Achæans, first of all the states of Greece, to be free, was any thing more than empty sound; if the treaty be valid, if the alliance and