38.30
After
settling matters in Cephallania and placing at garrison in Same, the consul
sailed to the Peloponnesus, whither the people of Aegium and the
Lacedaemonians had for some time urged him to go. Either as a concession
to its importance or owing to its convenient situation, Aegium had been the
meeting-place of the Council of the League ever since it had been formed.
This year for the first time Philopoemen tried to do away with this custom,
and was preparing to bring in a law enacting that the Assembly should be
held in each city of the League in turn. Just before the consul's visit the
Damiourgi (the supreme magistrates) of the various States had convened a
meeting of the League at Aegium, whilst Philopoemen the captain-general
had summoned them to Argos. As they would evidently almost all meet
there, the consul, though he was in favour of Aegium, went to Argos. Here
the question was debated, and when he saw that the Assembly were inclined
towards Argos, he gave way. The Lacedaemonians then drew his attention
to their grievances. The main cause of anxiety to their city was the
threatening attitude of the exiles, many of whom were living in forts and
villages which they had seized on the Laconian coast. The Lacedaemonians
chafed under this state of things; they wanted to have access to the sea
somewhere or other in case they wanted to send a mission to Rome or
elsewhere, and also that they might have a free port in which to receive
merchandise and necessaries from abroad. They made an attack by night
upon a maritime village called Las. The villagers and exiles were at first
terror-struck by the unlooked-for attack, but before it was day they collected
in a body and without much difficulty drove the Lacedaemonians out. Then
the whole of the coast took alarm and all the forts and villages and the exiles
who had made their homes there sent a joint appeal to the Achaeans for help.
