He contrived matter so and made this comprehensive plan owing to the number of eavesdroppers and spies employed by the tyrant.
On the day on which the main body of the Achaeans would arrive in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Tegea&groupId=1011&placeId=1780">Tegea</a> he dispatched his picked troops to pass the night at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sellasia&groupId=966&placeId=1714">Sellasia</a> and next day at daybreak to commence a raid on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Laconia&groupId=662&placeId=1211">Laconia</a>.
If the mercenaries came to protect the country and gave them trouble, he ordered them to retire on Scotitas and afterwards to place themselves under the orders of Didascalondas the Cretan, who had been taken into his confidence and had received full instructions about the whole enterprise.
These picked troops, then, advanced confidently to carry out their orders. Philopoemen, ordering the Achaeans to take an early supper, led the army out of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Tegea&groupId=1011&placeId=1780">Tegea</a>, and making a rapid night march, halted his forces at early dawn in the district called the country round Scotitas, a place which lies between <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Tegea&groupId=1011&placeId=1780">Tegea</a> and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a>.
The mercenaries at Pellene, when their scouts reported the invasion of the enemy, at once, as is their custom, advanced and fell upon the latter.
When the Achaeans, as they had been ordered, retreated, they followed them up, attacking them with great daring and confidence.
But when they reached the place where the ambuscade had been placed and the Achaeans rose from it, some of them were cut to pieces and others made prisoners.
Walbank Commentary