Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 38
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., Ed.

¹ —summoned it at Argos. When it was clear that almost all would assemble there, the consul, although he favoured the cause of the Aegians, also went to Argos; when the argument had begun there and he saw that the Aegian case was weaker, he gave up his purpose.² [2] Then the Lacedaemonians diverted his attention to their own [p. 103]quarrels.³ The state was kept in anxiety especially⁵ by the exiles, a great part of whom lived in the fortresses along the Laconian sea coast, all of which had been taken away from Sparta. The Lacedaemonians, angered at this, in order that somehow they might possess free access to the sea, if ever they sent ambassadors to Rome or elsewhere, and at the same time that they might have a market and a place for the storage of foreign merchandise for necessary purposes, made an unexpected night attack on the coast town of Las and captured it. The townspeople and the exiles who lived there were at first terrified by this unlooked-for event; then, assembling at daybreak, with a slight effort they expelled the Lacedaemonians. Nevertheless, the panic spread to the whole sea coast, and all the forts and villages and the exiles whose residences were there sent a joint embassy to the Achaeans.

[3] XXXI. The praetor Philopoemen, who had from the very beginning championed the cause of the exiles and had always urged the Achaeans to diminish the power and influence of the Lacedaemonians, gave the complainants an audience before the council, and on his motion a decree was passed that, whereas Titus Quinctius and the Romans had put the fortresses and villages of the Laconian coast under the protection and guardianship of the Achaeans, and whereas, [p. 105]although under the treaty the [4??] Lacedaemonians were⁶ under obligations to let them alone, the village of Las had been attacked and men had been killed there, therefore, unless those who had been principals in and accessories to this act should be surrendered to the Achaeans, the treaty should be deemed to have been violated.⁷ Messengers were at once sent to Lacedaemon to demand them. [5] This demand seemed to the Lacedaemonians so insolent and unmerited that if the ancient fortune of the state had continued they would without doubt have immediately taken up arms. The principal cause of the terror which struck them was that, if they once accepted the yoke by obedience to these first commands, Philopoemen would turn Lacedaemon over to the exiles, as he had long been planning. [6] Mad with wrath, then, they killed thirty men of the faction with which Philopoemen and the exiles had shared any other plans, and decreed that the alliance with the Achaeans should be broken off and that ambassadors should at once be sent to Cephallania to surrender Lacedaemon to the consul Marcus Fulvius and the Romans and to implore him to come to the Peloponnesus to receive the city of Lacedaemon under the good faith and protection of the Roman people.