The Roman general answered: "We never contracted any friendship or alliance with you, but with Pelops, the right and lawful king of Lacedaemon: whose authority, while the Carthaginian, Gallic, and other wars, succeeding one another, kept us constantly employed, the tyrants, who after him held Lacedaemon under forced subjection, usurped into their own hands, as did you also during the late war with Macedonia.

For what could be less fitting, than that we, who were waging war against Philip, in favour of the liberty of Greece, should contract friendship with a tyrant, and a tyrant the most cruel and violent towards his subjects that ever existed?
But, even supposing that you had not either seized or held Argos by iniquitous means, it would be incumbent on us, when we are giving liberty to all Greece, to reinstate Lacedaemon also in its ancient freedom, and the enjoyment of its own laws, which you just now spoke of, as if you were a rival of Lycurgus.

Shall we take pains to make Philip's garrisons evacuate Tassus and Bargylii; and shall we leave Lacedaemon and Argos, those two most illustrious cities, formerly the lights of Greece, under your feet, that their continuance in bondage may tarnish our title of deliverers of Greece?
But the Argives took part with Philip: we excuse you from taking any concern in that cause, so that you need not be angry with them on our behalf.

We have received sufficient proof, that the guilt of that proceeding is chargeable on two only, or, at most, three persons, and not on the state; just, indeed, as in the case of the invitation given to you and to your army, and your reception into the citadel, not one step was taken by public authority.

We know, that the Thessalians, Phocians, and Locrians, with unanimous consent, joined in espousing the cause of Philip; yet we have given liberty to them in common with the rest of Greece.