of his nobles, and the praetor of the Achaeans, unarmed likewise.  The tyrant, when he saw the king and the Roman general unarmed, opened the conference, with apologizing for having come to the meeting armed himself, and surrounded with armed men.  “He had no apprehensions,” he said, “from them; but only from the Argive exiles.”  When they then began to treat of the conditions of their friendship, the Roman made two demands:  one, that the war with the Achaeans should be put an end to; the other, that he should send him aid against Philip.  He promised the aid required; but, instead of a peace with the Achaeans, a cessation of hostilities was obtained, to last until the war with Philip should be concluded.

40.  A debate concerning the Argives, also, was set on foot by king Attalus, who charged Nabis with holding their city by force, which was put into his hands by the treachery of Philocles; while Nabis insisted, that he had been invited by the Argives themselves to afford them protection.  The king required a general assembly of the Argives to be convened, that the truth of that matter might be known.  To this the tyrant did not object; but the king alleged, that the Lacedaemonian troops ought to be withdrawn from the city, in order to render the assembly free; and that the people should be left at liberty to declare their real sentiments.  The tyrant refused to withdraw them, and the debate produced no effect.  To the Roman general, six hundred Cretans were given by Nabis, who agreed with the praetor of the Achaeans to a cessation of arms for four months, and thus they departed from the conference.  Quinctius proceeded to Corinth, advancing to the gates with the cohort of Cretans, in order that it might be evident to Philocles, the governor of the city, that the tyrant had deserted the cause of Philip.  Philocles himself came out to confer with the Roman general; and, on the latter exhorting him to change sides immediately, and surrender the city he answered in such a manner as showed an inclination rather to defer than to refuse the matter.  From Corinth, Quinctius sailed over to Anticyra, and sent his brother thence, to sound the disposition of the people of Acarnania.  Attalus went from Argos to Sicyon.  Here, on one side, the state added new honours to those formerly paid to the king; and, on the other, the king, besides having on a former occasion, redeemed for them, at a vast expense, a piece of land sacred to Apollo, unwilling to pass by the city of his friends and allies without a token of munificence, made them a present of ten talents of silver,[1] and ten thousand bushels of corn, and then returned to Cenchreae to his fleet.  Nabis, leaving a strong garrison at Argos, returned to Lacedaemon; and, as he himself had pillaged the men, he sent his wife to Argos to pillage the women.  She invited the females to her house, sometimes singly, and sometimes several together, who were united by family connexion; and partly by fair speeches, partly by threats, stripped them, not only of their gold, but, at last, even of their garments, and every article of female attire.