Philopæmen

Philopæmen, a patriot of Greece, was born at Megalopolis about 252 B.C. In 222 he was one of the defenders of Megalopolis against Cleomenes, king of Sparta, and next year he fought with the Macedonians against the Spartans. He then served in Crete with such distinction that in 210 he was appointed general of the Achæan horse. In 208 he was raised to the highest military dignity in Greece, being elected stratêgos or commander-in-chief of the Achæan League. The battle of Mantinea (208), in which the Spartans were again utterly routed, raised him to the pinnacle of fame, and at the Nemean festival which followed he was proclaimed liberator of Greece. So great was his influence that the Macedonian monarch, Philip, began to fear that Greece would regain its independence, and tried, vainly, to have him secretly assassinated. During the next few years he was absent in Crete, and returned to the Peloponnesus in 194 to find the Romans in Greece. On the departure of the consul Flamininus, Nabis of Sparta recommenced hostilities against the Achæans; Philopæmen was once more appointed stratêgos (192), and in a pitched battle nearly annihilated the troops of Nabis. He now exerted all his power to heal the divisions among the Achæans, and to prevent them from affording the Romans a pretext for taking away their independence. In 188 he took a fierce revenge on Sparta for having put a number of his friends to death, and was in consequence strongly censured by the Roman senate, and by Q. Cæcilius Metellus, who was sent out as a commissioner to Greece in 185. Two years later Philopæmen (now an old man of seventy) was elected stratêgos for the eighth time. When lying ill of a fever at Argos he rose from his sick-bed to quell the revolt of the Messenians, but was overpowered by numbers, and fell into the hands of Deinocrates, the leader of the Messenians, who two nights after sent him a cup of poison. Philopæmen drank it and died.

Philosopher's Stone. See ALCHEMY.