ABSTRACT
In 182 BC the Achaean general Philopoemen was taken captive and later (it was said) forced to drink poison in his cell at Messene. When Messene fell, the Messenian commander Deinocrates committed suicide, those who had voted for Philopoemen's death were killed immediately, and those who had voted to have him tortured were arrested, to die themselves by torture (Plut. Phil. 18.4-21.2). The Achaean army then marched to Megalopolis with Philopoemen's cremated remains, and according to Plutarch a group of Messenian prisoners of unspecified number was stoned to death around the tomb (Phil. 21.5). The stoning of the prisoners, though not mentioned in other sources (Livy 39.50.9; Paus. 8.51.8), is historical, for the young Polybius, from whom Plutarch will have derived his information,39 was present at the funeral (Phil. 21.3).
