XVI. When Diophanes, the commander-in-chief of the Achæans, endeavoured to punish the Lacedæmonians for a change in their policy, and they by their resistance threw the whole of Peloponnesus into confusion, Philopoemen tried to act as mediator, and to soothe the anger of Diophanes, pointing out to him that at a time when the Romans and king Antiochus with enormous forces were about to make Greece their battle ground, a general ought to direct all his thoughts to their movements, and to avoid any internal disturbance, willingly accepting any apologies from those who did wrong. But as Diophanes took no notice of him, but together with Flamininus invaded Laconia, Philopoemen, disregarding the exact letter of the law, performed a most spirited and noble action. He hurried to Sparta, and, though only a private man, shut its gates in the faces of the commander-in-chief of the Achæans and of the Roman consul, put an end to the revolutionary movement there, and prevailed upon the city to rejoin the Achæan league. Some time afterwards however, we are told by Polybius that Philopoemen, when commander-in-chief, having some quarrel with the Lacedæmonians, restored the exiles to the city, and put to death eighty, or, according to Aristokrates, three hundred and fifty Spartans. He also pulled down the walls of Sparta, and annexed a large portion of its territory to Megalopolis, while he forced all those persons who had been created citizens of Sparta under the rule of the despots to leave the city and proceed to Achæa, except three hundred. These, because they refused to obey him and leave Lacedæmon he sold for slaves, and with the money, as a wanton insult, built a public portico in Megalopolis. Moreover, in his wrath against the Lacedæmonians, he did them a most cruel wrong, for he abolished the Lycurgean system of education and forced them to educate their children like those of the Achæans, because he saw that they never would be humble-minded as long as they lived under the discipline of Lycurgus. Thus was the haughty city of Sparta brought so low by its misfortunes as to permit Philopoemen to cut, as it were, its very sinews, and render it tame and crushed. Afterwards, however, the citizens obtained permission from Rome to retire from the Achæan confederation, upon which they restored their original constitution as far as their great disasters permitted.