Philopoemen   

variety of change and irregularity, and, above all, to bring himself
to endure hunger and loss of sleep without difficulty. Philopoemen,
hearing this, not only laid by all thoughts of wrestling and contemned
it then, but when he came to be general, discouraged it by all marks
of reproach and dishonour he could imagine, as a thing which made
men, otherwise excellently fit for war, to be utterly useless and
unable to fight on necessary occasions.
When he left off his masters and teachers, and began to bear arms
in the incursions which his citizens used to make upon the Lacedaemonians
for pillage and plunder, he would always march out the first and return
the last. When there was nothing to do, he sought to harden his body,
and make it strong and active by hunting, or labouring in his ground.
He had a good estate about twenty furlongs from the town, and thither
he would go every day after dinner and supper; and when night came,
throw himself upon the first mattress in his way, and there sleep
as one of the labourers. At break of day he would rise with the rest,
and work either in the vineyard or at the plough; from thence return
again to the town, and employ his time with his friends or the magistrates
in public business. What he got in the wars he laid out on horses,
or arms, or in ransoming captives; but endeavoured to improve his
own property the justest way, by tillage; and this not slightly, by
way of diversion, but thinking it his strict duty so to manage his
own fortune as to be out of the temptation of wronging others.
He spent much time on eloquence and philosophy, but selected his authors,
and cared only for those by whom he might profit in virtue. In Homer's
fictions his attention was given to whatever he thought apt to raise
the courage. Of all other books he was most devoted to the commentaries
of Evangelus on military tactics, and took delight, at leisure hours,
in the histories of Alexander; thinking that such reading, unless
undertaken for mere amusement and idle conversation, was to the purpose
for action. Even in speculations on military subjects it was his habit
to neglect maps and diagrams, and to put the theorems to practical
proof on the ground itself. He would be exercising his thoughts and
considering as he travelled, and arguing with those about him of the
difficulties of steep or broken ground, what might happen at rivers,
ditches, or mountain-passes, in marching in close or in open, in this
or in that particular form of battle. The truth is, he indeed took
an immoderate pleasure in military operations and in warfare, to which
he devoted himself, as the special means for exercising all sorts
of virtue, and utterly contemned those who were not soldiers, as drones
and useless in the commonwealth.
When he was thirty years of age, Cleomenes, King of the Lacedaemonians,
surprised Megalopolis by night, forced the guards, broke in, and seized
the market-place. Philopoemen came out upon the alarm, and fought
with desperate courage, but could not beat the enemy out again; yet
he succeeded in effecting the escape of the citizens, who got away
while he made head against the pursuers, and amused Cleomenes, till,
after losing his horse and receiving several wounds, with much ado
he came off himself, being the last man in the retreat. The Megalopolitans
escaped to Messene, whither Cleomenes sent to offer them their town
and goods again. Philopoemen perceiving them to be only too glad at
the news, and eager to return, checked them with a speech, in which
he made them sensible, that what Cleomenes called restoring the city
was, rather, possessing himself of the citizens; and through their
means securing also the city for the future. The mere solitude would,
of itself, ere long force him away, since there was no staying to
guard empty houses and naked walls. These reasons withheld the Megalopolitans,
but gave Cleomenes a pretext to pillage and destroy a great part of
the city, and carry away a great booty.
Awhile after King Antigonus coming down to succour the Achaeans, they
marched with their united forces against Cleomenes; who, having seized
the avenues, lay advantageously posted on the hills of Sellasia. Antigonus
drew up close by him, with a resolution to force him in his strength.
Philopoemen, with his citizens, was that day placed among the horse,