374 PHILOPCEMEN, . '• .

dience to them, suggesting to them to urge that from the bfeginning they were not subject to their taxes, or laws, or. any way under their command.'* In these, pretences he openly took their 'part, and fomented seditious move- ments amongst the Achaeails id" general against Megalop- oUs. But these things hapjoened a while after. WJiile he stayed in Crete, in tha service of the Gortyn- ians, he made war not like a Peloponnesian and Arca- dian, fairly in the op^n field, but fought with th.em at their own weapon, and ' turiiing their stratagems and tricks against themselves, showed them they played craft against skill, and were. but children to an experienced soldier. Having acted here with great bravery, and great •reputation to himself, .he returned into Peloponnesus, • where he found Philip beaten by Titus Quintius, and Na- bis at war both with the Romans and AchiBans. He was at once . chosen general against Nabis, but venturing to fight by sea, met, like Epaminfindas, with a result very contrary to the general expectation, and his own former reputation. Epaminondas, however, according to some statements, was backward by design, unwilling to give his countrymen an appetite for the advantages of the sea, lest from good soldiers, they should by little and little turn, as P^to says, to ill mariners. A.nd therefore he returned from Asia and the. Islands without doing any thing, on purpose. Whereas Philopoemen, thinking his skill in land- service would equally avail at sea, learned how great a part of valor experience is, and how much it imports in the management of things to be accustomed to them. FoV he was not only put to the worst in the fight for want of skill, but having rigged up an old ship, which had been a famous vessel forty years before, and shipped his citizens in her, she foundering, he was in danger of losing them all. ■ But finding the enemy, as if he had been driven out of the sea, had, in'contempt of him, besieged