PHILOPCEMEN. 367

punishment also, where it was necessary. And then by public exercises, reviews, and contests in the presence of numerous spectators, in a little time he made them won- derfully strong and bold, and, which is reckoned of great- est consequence in military service, light and agile. With use and industry they grew so perfect, to such a command of their horses, such a ready exactness in wheeling round in their troops, that in any change of posture the whole body seemed to move with all the facility and prompti- tude, and, as it were, with the single will of one man. In the great battle, which they fought with the J]]tolians and Eleans by the river Lai'issus, he set them an examjDle him- self Damophantus, general of the Elean horse, smgled out Philopoemen, and rode with full speed at him. Phi- lopoemen awaited his charge, and, before receiving the stroke, with a violent blow of his spear threw him dead to the ground : upon whose fall the enemy fled immedi- ately. And now Philopoemen was in everybody's mouth, as a man who in actual fighting with his own hand yielded not to the youngest, nor in good conduct to the oldest, and than whom there came not into the field any better soldier or commander. Aratus, indeed, was the first who raised the Achseans, inconsiderable till then, into reputation and power, by uniting their divided cities into one commonwealth, and establishing amongst them an humane and truly Grecian form of government ; and hence it happened, as in run- ning waters, where when a few little particles of matter once stop, others stick to them, and one part strengthen- ing another, the whole becomes firm and solid ; so in a general weakness, when every city relying only on itself, all Greece was giving way to an easy dissolution, the AchiBans, first forming themselves into a body, then draw- ing in their neighbors round about, some by protection, delivering them from their tyrants, others by peaceful