40.  Quinctius, conceiving greater hopes from the fears of the enemy than from the immediate effect of his operations, kept them in a continual alarm during the three succeeding days; sometimes harassing them with assaults, sometimes enclosing several places with works, so as to leave no passage open for flight.  These menaces had such an effect on the tyrant that he again sent Pythagoras to solicit peace.  Quinctius, at first, rejected him with disdain, ordering him to quit the camp; but afterwards, on his suppliant entreaties, and throwing himself at his feet, he admitted him to an audience.  The purport of his discourse, at first, was, an offer of implicit submission to the will of the Romans; but this availed nothing, being considered as nugatory and indecisive.  The business was, at length, brought to this issue, that a truce should be made on the conditions delivered in writing a few days before, and the money and hostages were accordingly received.  While the tyrant was kept shut up by the siege, the Argives, receiving frequent accounts, one after another, that Lacedaemon was on the point of being taken, and having themselves resumed courage on the departure of Pythagoras, with the strongest part of his garrison, looked now with contempt on the small number remaining in the citadel; and, being headed by a person named Archippus, drove the garrison out.  They gave Timocrates, of Pellene, leave to retire, with solemn assurance of sparing his life, in consideration of the mildness which he had shown in his government.  In the midst of this rejoicing, Quinctius arrived, after having granted peace to the tyrant, dismissed Eumenes and the Rhodians from Lacedaemon, and sent back his brother, Lucius Quinctius, to the fleet.

41.  The Nemaean games, the most celebrated of all the festivals, and their most splendid public spectacle, had been omitted, at the regular time, on account of the disasters of the war:  the state now, in the fulness of their joy, ordered them to be celebrated on the arrival of the Roman general and his army; and appointed the general, himself, president of the games.  There were many circumstances which heightened their happiness:  their countrymen, whom Pythagoras, lately, and, before that, Nabis, had carried away, were brought home from Lacedaemon; those who on the discovery of the conspiracy by Pythagoras, and when the massacre was already begun, had fled from home, now returned; they saw their liberty restored, after a long interval, and beheld, in their city, the Romans, the authors of its restoration, whose only view, in making war on the tyrant, was the support of their interest.  The freedom of the Argives was, also, solemnly announced, by the voice of a herald, on the very day of the Nemaean games.  Whatever pleasure the Achaeans felt on Argos being reinstated in the general council of Achaia, it was, in a great measure, alloyed by Lacedaemon being left in slavery, and the tyrant close at their side.  As to the