NABIS, tyrant of Sparta, seized the throne after Sparta's heavy defeat by the Achaean League in 207 B.C. He seems to have put into practice the "four points" of the revolutionary pro gramme of the day, abolition of debt, division of land, confisca tion of personal property and liberation of slaves, though he does not appear to have tackled the Helot problem very completely. Whether he was the monster of cruelty represented by Polybius it is difficult to say. No revolutionary leader gets fair play from contemporary historians as a rule, and few revolutionary leaders can afford very gentle measures. In any case, he carried out more thoroughly the aims of Agis and Cleomenes, and extended his system to Argos, which was put into his hands by Philip V. in 198. The Achaeans under Philopoemen first attacked him in 201, and defeated him at Scotitas. Later in 195 B.C. after the conclusion of the war with Philip the Romans under Flamininus turned their attention to the affairs of Greece. The League
was unanimous for war against Nabis, and Flamininus duly under took it. Nabis organized a vigorous defence, and raised an army of 1 o,000 from Sparta with the help of the enfranchised Helots. After some desultory fighting and a good deal of negotiation, Nabis obtained peace at the price of losing Argos and some harbours, and the internal affairs of Sparta were left undisturbed. As soon as the Romans had gone Nabis was embroiled with the Achaeans again. He was eventually murdered by some Aetolian auxiliaries, and Philopoemen ruthlessly suppressed one of the few whole-hearted attempts at social revolution in Greek history.
See Plutarch, Philopoemen; Polyb. xiii.—xx.; Paus. iv. viii.; Liv. 31- 35; W. W. Tarn, in The Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, 1923), and Hel lenistic Civilization (1927).