Polybius, Histories

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Treaty Between the Achaeans and the Messenians

When the ambassadors of the Spartan exiles arrived in

Terms granted to the Messenians

the Peloponnese from Rome with a letter from the Senate to the Achaeans, desiring that measures should be taken for their recall and restoration to their country, the Achaeans resolved to postpone the consideration of the question until their own ambassadors should return. After making this answer, they caused the agreement between themselves and the Messenians to be engraved on a tablet: granting them, among other favours, a three years' remission of taxes, in order that the damage done to their territory should fall upon the Achaeans equally with the Messenians.

The request of the Spartan exiles refused.

But when Bippus and his colleagues arrived from Rome, and reported that the letter in regard to the exiles was not due to any strong feeling on the part of the Senate, but to the importunity of the exiles themselves, the Achaeans voted to make no change.