How all this was brought about I will show in detail further on. The next envoys to be introduced were those from Lacedaemon.
Of these there were four sets. Lysis and others came on behalf of the old exiles, maintaining that they ought to recover all the property they had when first exiled:
Areus and Alcibiades proposed that they should, upon receiving back their own property to the value of a talent, distribute the rest among those worthy of citizenship.
Serippus contended that the condition of affairs should be left as it was when they were members of the Achaean League,
while Chaeron and others appeared on behalf of those put to death or exiled by the decree of the Achaeans, demanding their recall and the restoration of the constitution . . .
they addressed the Achaeans in terms which suited their own views.
The senate, unable to examine these different proposals in detail, delegated that duty to three men who had formerly acted as commissioners in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>, Flamininus, Quintus Caecilius, and Appius Claudius.
After listening to various arguments, they were all in agreement as to the restoration of the exiles and the remains of those put to death, and as to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a>\'s remaining a member of the Achaean League:
but on the question of the property — whether the talent's worth of his own property should be assigned to each exile or whether . . . they differed.
But in order that the whole matter should not be rediscussed from the beginning, they drew up a written agreement about the points not in dispute to which all the parties affixed their seals.
Flamininus and his colleagues, wishing to involve the Achaeans in this agreement, invited to meet them Xenarchus
and the others who had been sent as envoys at the time by the Achaeans, partly to renew the alliance and partly to watch the result of the various demands made by Spartans.
Contrary to his expectation, when asked if they approved of the written agreement they for some reason or other hesitated.
On the one hand they were not pleased with the recall of the exiles and of those put to death, because it was contrary to the Achaean decree as inscribed on the column; but they were on the whole pleased, because it was written in the agreement that <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a> was to remain a member of the Achaean League.
At length, however, partly out of inability to decide, and partly from fear of Flamininus and his colleagues, they affixed their seal.
The senate now appointed Quintus Marcius Philippus their legate, and dispatched him to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> and the Peloponnesus.
Walbank Commentary