Description of Greece

​Although no help came to them from the Achaeans, the Oropians were nevertheless forced by Menalcidas to pay the money. Once he had the bribe in his hand, he considered it a disaster if he should have to share any of the gains with Callicrates too. At first he resorted to delays and deceits regarding the payment, but not long afterwards he had the audacity to outright withhold it.

​This indeed confirms the saying that there is a fire that burns hotter than another fire, a wolf fiercer than other wolves, and a hawk that flies swifter than another hawk, seeing that Menalcidas surpassed in treachery even Callicrates, the most unprincipled man of those days—Callicrates, who, though a slave to every kind of gain and having incurred the hatred of the city of the Athenians for no private profit of his own, prosecuted Menalcidas before the Achaeans on a capital charge when the latter had ceased from his office. For he alleged that Menalcidas had gone on an embassy to Rome against the interests of the Achaeans, and had been extremely eager to detach Sparta from the Achaean league.

​Thereupon, as Menalcidas was in extreme danger, he shared three talents of the money from Oropus with Diaeus of Megalopolis. Diaeus had also become his successor in the generalship of the Achaeans; and being eager at that time for the bribe, he was bound to secure safety for Menalcidas, even against the will of the Achaeans. The Achaeans, both individually and in common, blamed Diaeus for the acquittal of Menalcidas; but Diaeus diverted them from the charges against himself into the hope of greater undertakings, using the following pretext for his deception.

​The Lacedaemonians fled for refuge to the Roman senate concerning disputed land; and to them in their refuge, the senate declared that they should submit other matters, except capital cases, to trial in the assembly of the Achaeans. This indeed was the senate’s answer; but Diaeus did not tell the Achaeans the true report, but, to beguile them, he asserted that it had been permitted to them by the Roman senate even to condemn to death any man of those from Sparta.

​They indeed claimed the right to judge the Lacedaemonians even on capital charges, but the Lacedaemonians neither admitted that Diaeus was telling the truth and wished to refer the matter back to the Roman senate. But the Achaeans in turn took up another argument, that no city that belonged to the Achaeans was independently authorized to send an embassy of its own privately to the Romans, without the consent of the Achaean league.

​Thus war was beginning between the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians from these disputes; and the Lacedaemonians, realizing that they were not a match for the Achaeans in war, employed embassies to their cities and private negotiations with Diaeus. The cities indeed made their replies in the same manner, saying that it was not lawful for them to disobey when the general ordered an expedition. For Diaeus was leading the Achaeans, and he declared that he would come to make war, not upon Sparta, but upon those who were disturbing her.

​When the elders asked how many he considered to be doing wrong, he sent in to them the names of twenty-four men, who were foremost in all things in Sparta. Thereupon prevailed the opinion of Agasisthenes, a man who was esteemed even before this, but who from this advice rose to even greater glory; he urged these men to go into voluntary exile from Lacedaemon, and not, by remaining there, to bring war upon Sparta, and he said that if they fled to Rome, they would be brought back not long after by the Romans.

​So they departed and were formally brought to trial by the Spartans and condemned to death. Also Callicrates and Diaeus were sent by the Achaeans to Rome, to argue the case against the exiles from Sparta before the senate. And of them, Callicrates died of disease on the way, and I do not even know whether, if he had reached Rome, he would have been of any benefit to the Achaeans, or would have become the beginning of greater evils for them; while Diaeus, having entered into dispute with Menalcidas before the senate, spoke much and heard much that was unbecoming.

​And the senate answered them that they would send envoys who would judge the differences between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. And the journey of the envoys from Rome was somewhat slow, so that Diaeus had the opportunity from the start to deceive the Achaeans, and Menalcidas the Lacedaemonians. For Diaeus led them astray, claiming that it had been decided by the Roman senate that the Lacedaemonians should obey them in all things; while Menalcidas deceived the Lacedaemonians completely, telling them that they had been released by the Romans from belonging to the Achaean league.