Aratus

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language

Fearing, I think, its ill-omened tone, Polycrates, the philosopher Chrysippus does not quote a certain old proverb as it actually runs, but as he himself thought better: "Who will praise a father, if not fortunate sons?" But Dionysodorus of Troezen, refuting him, sets against it the true version, which runs: "Who will praise a father, if not wretched sons?"

And he says that men who are worth nothing on their own account, but who creep in under the merits of certain ancestors and dwell at length on praise of them, are silenced by the proverb. But for one in whom nobility shines forth naturally from his fathers, as Pindar says, as it does for you, who model your life on the finest examples from your own house, it would be a happy thing to keep remembering the best of one's stock, always hearing something and saying something about them,

for such men do not hang their reputation on borrowed praises out of a lack of achievements of their own, but rather, by joining their own deeds to those of their forebears, celebrate them as the founders alike of their family and of their way of life. For this reason I too have composed and sent to you the Life of your fellow-citizen and ancestor Aratus, whom you disgrace neither by your own reputation nor by your power — not because I supposed that you were not already most exactly acquainted from the start with his deeds,

but so that your sons Polycrates and Pythocles may be nourished on the examples of their own house, partly by hearing of them, partly by reading of them — for it belongs to a self-loving man, not a lover of what is noble, always to think his own the best in everything.

The city of the Sicyonians, once its pure Dorian aristocracy, its harmony as it were confounded, first fell into factions and the ambitions of demagogues, did not cease being sick and disturbed, exchanging one tyrant for another, until, after Cleon had been put to death, they chose Timocleidas and Clinias as archons, men held in the very highest esteem and among the most powerful of the citizens,

and when the constitution already seemed to have achieved some settlement, Timocleidas died, and Abantidas son of Paseas, working toward a tyranny for himself, killed Clinias and banished some of his friends and kinsmen and put others to death. He sought also to kill Clinias's son, Aratus, who had been left behind at seven years old.

In the confusion around the house the boy was swept out along with the fleeing, and wandering about the city in terror and without help, he happened by chance to slip unnoticed into the house of a woman, a sister of Abantidas, wed to Prophantus (brother of Clinias), a woman named Sosus. She, being noble in character and believing that the child had taken refuge with her by the will of some god, kept him concealed within, and once darkness fell she quietly had him conveyed away to Argos.

Aratus, thus stolen away and having escaped the danger, immediately conceived and nursed a fierce and burning hatred against tyrants, and being brought up among the guest-friends and hereditary friends of his father at Argos in a manner befitting a free man, and seeing his body shooting up toward good condition and stature, he gave himself over to training in the wrestling-school, so that he even competed in the pentathlon and won crowns.

And indeed something of an athletic look plainly shows even in his portraits, and the intelligence and majesty of his face do not altogether deny the voracious appetite and the mattock-like jaw. Hence he perhaps devoted less attention to eloquence than was fitting for a statesman, although he was more elegant a speaker than some judge from his memoirs, which he left behind composed in passing and offhand, in words that came readily to hand.

Some time later Deinias and his circle, along with Aristotle the dialectician, having lured Abantidas — who was accustomed to be present whenever they held their discussions in the marketplace at leisure and to join in the disputation — into just such a pastime, and having contrived a plot, killed him; and Paseas, the father of Abantidas, having taken up the rule, was treacherously murdered by Nicocles, who proclaimed himself tyrant.

They say this man's looks matched almost exactly those of Periander, Cypselus's son, in the way that the Persian Orontes resembled Alcmaeon son of Amphiaraus, and a certain young Lacedaemonian resembled Hector — whom Myrtilus records was trampled to death by the crowd of onlookers when they recognized this.

While Nicocles was tyrant for four months, in the course of which, having done much harm to the city, he came near to losing it to a plot by the Aetolians, Aratus, already a young man, had a brilliant reputation for his noble birth and a spirit which showed itself to be neither small nor idle, but weighty, and for his age tempered with a more than usually secure judgment,

so that the exiles in particular turned their attention to him, and Nicocles too did not neglect what was going on, but watched unobtrusively and kept guard over his movements, fearing no such great venture on his part nor any deed so recklessly hazarded, but suspecting that he was in communication with the kings, who were friends and hereditary guest-friends of his father.

And indeed Aratus truly did attempt to travel that road. But when Antigonus kept making promises and let the time slip by, and the hopes placed in Egypt and Ptolemy remained distant, he made up his mind to bring down the tyrant through his own actions alone.

He first confided his plan to two men, Aristomachus and Ecdelus. Aristomachus was living in exile away from Sicyon, whereas Ecdelus, an Arcadian, hailed from Megalopolis, a man both philosophical and practical, who had become, while in the city, a close associate of Arcesilaus the Academic.

When these men had received the plan eagerly, he conferred with the other exiles, of whom a few, ashamed to abandon the hope, took part in what was being done, but the majority tried to hold Aratus back, thinking him emboldened by inexperience in such matters.

While he was deliberating about seizing some place in the territory of Sicyon, from which as a base he might wage war against the tyrant, there came to Argos a Sicyonian man who had escaped from prison; he was the brother of one of the exiles, Xenocles. Brought to Aratus by Xenocles, he said that at the point on the wall over which he himself had climbed and escaped safely, the ground within was nearly level, adjoining rocky and high ground, while the height on the outside was not altogether unreachable by ladders.

When Aratus heard this, he sent out, together with Xenocles, two of his own household servants, Seuthas and Technon, to reconnoiter the wall, having resolved, if he could, to stake everything swiftly and secretly on a single risk, rather than, as a private man, to set himself against a tyrant through a long war and open contests.

When Xenocles and his companions returned, having taken the measurements of the wall and reporting that the nature of the ground was not difficult or hard to manage, but saying that it was a troublesome thing to approach unnoticed because of a gardener's dogs — small ones, but extraordinarily pugnacious and implacable — he set the enterprise in motion at once.

Now the preparation of arms was ordinary enough, since practically everyone at that time practiced thefts and raids upon one another; but the ladders Euphranor the engineer built openly, since his craft made him free of suspicion, since he too was one of the exiles,

and as for men, each of his few friends at Argos supplied him ten out of a small number, while he himself armed thirty of his own household slaves. He also hired, through Proteus and Xenophilus, chief men among the freebooters, not many soldiers, to whom the story given out was that there would be an expedition against the king's horses in the territory of Sicyon. And most of them were sent ahead scattered to the tower of Polygnotus, ordered to wait there.

Caphisias too was sent ahead by him, lightly equipped, with four others, whose task was to reach the gardener in the dark, claiming to be travelers, and, having lodged with him, to lock him inside together with his dogs, since no other route existed for slipping past unseen. The ladders, which could be taken apart, they put into grain-bins, covered them over on wagons, and sent them ahead.

Meanwhile, since some of Nicocles's spies had appeared at Argos and were said to be going about unseen and watching Aratus, he came forward at daybreak and, making himself conspicuous, spent time in the marketplace with his friends; then, having anointed himself in the gymnasium and taken along from the wrestling-school some of the young men accustomed to drink and idle away time with him, he led them off home; and shortly afterward people spotted his household servants moving through the marketplace, this one bearing garlands, that one purchasing torches, another conversing with the girls who were accustomed to play the lyre and the flute at drinking-parties,

and the spies, seeing all this, were completely deceived, and laughing to one another said, "There was never anything more cowardly than a tyrant, after all, if Nicocles, holding so great a city and so great a power, dreads a young man who is spending his traveling-money for exile on pleasures and daytime drinking-bouts."

So these men, thus deceived, went off; but Aratus, immediately after breakfast, went out, and joining his soldiers at the tower of Polygnotus, led them forward to Nemea, where he disclosed the enterprise to the men for the first time, making them promises

and exhortations, and having given out the password "Apollo the All-Conquering," led them forward toward the city, timing his march to the circuit of the moon, hurrying it in one stretch and slackening it again, so that he might have the light to use along the road, and by the time it was setting be near the wall, close by the garden.

There Caphisias met him, having failed to master the dogs — for one had bolted away before he could catch it — though he had shut the gardener in. Most of the men grew discouraged and urged withdrawal, but Aratus encouraged them, saying he would lead them back if the dogs troubled them too much.

At the same time he sent ahead the men carrying the ladders, led by Ecdelus and Mnasitheus, while he himself followed at a leisurely pace, the dogs by now barking vigorously and running along beside Ecdelus's party. Nevertheless they reached the wall and set the ladders firmly against it. As the first men were climbing up,

the officer relieving the dawn watch went on his rounds ringing a bell, while numerous torches burned and a great din rose from the men moving about; the climbers, just as they were, crouched down there upon the ladders and escaped these men's notice without much difficulty, but as another watch, opposite to this one, was approaching, they came into the utmost danger.

As soon as they had gotten past that watch as well, the first men, Mnasitheus and Ecdelus, immediately began climbing up, and taking hold of the roads on either side of the wall, they sent Technon to Aratus, urging him to hurry.

The garden lay quite close to the wall and to the tower where a large hunting dog kept watch. Whether from natural sluggishness or from weariness after the day's heat, the dog failed to perceive the men creeping near. But when the small dogs of the gardener below began yelping at him, he answered first with a faint, muffled growl, then, as the men slipped past, he raised his voice louder.

And already a great deal of barking held the place, so that the guard on the far side asked the huntsman in a loud shout at whom the dog was barking so fiercely, and whether anything unusual was happening. He, from the tower, called back that nothing was wrong, but that the dog had been provoked by the light of the wall-guards and the sound of the bell.

This above all emboldened Aratus's soldiers, who supposed that the huntsman was concealing his own complicity in the affair, and that there were many others in the city as well who were cooperating. Still, as they pressed against the wall the danger was severe and dragged on, since the ladders shook unless the men climbed up one at a time and slowly; and the hour pressed them hard, for the cocks were already crowing, and it was all but time for the countryfolk who habitually brought produce to be coming in to market,

and so Aratus, hurrying, climbed up too, forty men in all having gone up before him; and after waiting to take on a few more from below, he advanced to the house of the tyrant and to the headquarters — for it was there that the mercenaries spent their nights. Falling upon them suddenly and seizing them all, but killing no one, he at once sent messengers around calling in each of his friends from their homes.

And as they came running together from every side, day was already beginning to break and the theater was full of a crowd, still tossed about by an uncertain rumor and knowing nothing clear about what was being done — until at last the herald came forward and announced that Aratus son of Cleinias called on the citizens to stand for freedom.

Then, believing that what they had long expected had at last arrived, they rushed in a body to the doors of the tyrant, bringing fire with them. A great flame rose up, visible as far as Corinth once the house had caught, so that the people in Corinth, amazed, very nearly set out to help. Nicocles, meanwhile, slipped away unnoticed through certain underground passages and fled from the city,

and the soldiers, together with the Sicyonians, put out the fire and plundered the house. Nor did Aratus prevent even this, and the rest of the tyrants' wealth he set before the citizens in common. No one was killed, nor was anyone at all wounded, either among the attackers or among their enemies, but fortune kept the deed pure and untouched by the blood of citizens.

He brought back the exiles — those driven out by Nicocles numbering eighty, and those from the earlier tyrants no fewer than five hundred, for whom the wandering had been long, coming close to fifty years. Most of those who returned were poor, and when they laid claim to what had once been theirs and went about among the estates and houses, they caused Aratus terrible difficulty, since he saw the city both plotted against from without and begrudged its freedom by Antigonus, and disturbed and torn by factional strife from within.

For this reason, weighing the situation with whatever judgment the moment allowed, he transferred the city and united it to the Achaeans; and though they were Dorians, they gladly assumed the Achaean name and civic identity, even though the Achaeans at that time enjoyed neither a shining reputation nor much power. Most of them dwelt in small towns and worked land that was neither rich nor plentiful, settled along a coast without harbors, one where the surf mostly pounded against the shore.

But it was these very Achaeans who showed most clearly that Greek strength is unconquerable whenever it happens to have order and unified organization and a leader with sense — men who were, one might say, no part at all of the old prime of Greece, and who together did not possess the power of even a single city of note, yet through good counsel and concord,

and because they could, upon meeting the man foremost in virtue, set envy aside and follow his lead in obedience, they not only kept themselves free in the midst of mighty cities, dominions, and despotisms, but went on liberating and rescuing as many of the rest of the Greeks as they were able.

Aratus was by temperament a statesman, high-minded, more exacting in public matters than in his own private affairs, bitterly a hater of tyrants, always measuring both enmity and friendship by the boundary of the common good.

Hence he seems to have been not so much a scrupulous friend as a reasonable and gentle enemy, shifting on both sides according to the moment as the political situation required — a man devoted, as no one else, to the concord of peoples and the fellowship of cities and to the single voice a council-chamber and a theater send forth; but when it came to using open war and pitched battle he was timid and without confidence, while at stealing a march on affairs and secretly contriving against cities and tyrants he was most resourceful.

For this reason, though he brought off many unexpected successes in the ventures he dared, he seems to have let slip no fewer opportunities that were within his power, out of caution. For it is not only, as it seems, that the eyes of certain beasts, active in the dark, go blind by day, since the moisture around the eye, being dry and thin, cannot bear its mixture with the light — but there is also a certain shrewdness and intelligence in men that is by nature ill at ease in matters carried out openly and proclaimed, but grows bold when turned toward hidden and secret undertakings.

Such unevenness is produced in gifted natures by a want of philosophical training, which brings forth virtue, like a fruit growing wild and untended, apart from knowledge. Let this much, then, be examined by the examples given.

Once Aratus had brought himself and his city into union with the Achaeans, he took his place in the cavalry, and the commanders came to love him for his readiness to obey; for despite having given the common cause so much through his own standing and his country's strength, he was content to be ranked as an ordinary member under whoever chanced to hold the office of Achaean general at the time — be it someone from Dyme, from Tritaea, or from a town smaller still,

and there also came to him a gift of money from the king, twenty-five talents; this Aratus received, and having received it he gave it over to his own citizens, who were in need both for other purposes and for the ransoming of captives.

But since the exiles were inconsolable, harassing those who held their properties, and the city was in danger of being thrown into upheaval, seeing one hope in the generosity of Ptolemy he set out to sail there and to beg the king to contribute money toward the settlement,

he put out then from Methone beyond Malea, meaning to make use of the direct crossing. But a great wind and a heavy sea coming down from the open water met them, and when the pilot gave way before it, he was carried off course and with difficulty made land at Adria, which was hostile territory — for it was held by Antigonus and kept under guard; but he managed to land undetected, and, leaving the ship behind, retreated well inland away from the coast, taking along one companion, his friend Timanthes.

And throwing themselves down in a spot thick with woods, they spent a harsh night there. A little later the garrison commander came searching for Aratus and was misled by Aratus's own servants, whom he had told beforehand to claim their master had already fled and taken ship for Euboea. The goods being carried, however, along with the ship and the attendants, he declared enemy property and seized them.

Not many days later, when Aratus was at a loss, a stroke of good fortune came to him: a Roman ship put in near the place where he was passing his time, at times climbing up to a lookout, at other times hiding. This ship was sailing to Syria, but he boarded it after persuading the shipmaster to carry him as far as Caria; and he was carried across, again meeting with no fewer dangers at sea.

From Caria, after a long time, he crossed over to Egypt, and there he met with the king, who was favorably disposed toward him and had already been courted with paintings and pictures from Greece — in which Aratus, having no unrefined judgment, was always gathering and acquiring some piece of skilled and exceptional work, above all by Pamphilus and Melanthus, and sending it to him.

For the fame of the Sicyonian school of art and fine painting was still flourishing, as being the only one that kept its beauty uncorrupted, so that even Apelles, already famed and admired, came to study among these artists for a talent's fee, eager to share their reputation rather than merely learn their craft. For this reason, when Aratus liberated the city he immediately removed every other portrait of the tyrants, yet over the one of Aristratus, who had risen to prominence under Philip, he hesitated for a long time.

For Aristratus had been painted by all the circle of Melanthus standing beside a victorious chariot, with Apelles himself having had a hand in the painting as well, as Polemon the guidebook-writer has recorded. The work was a sight worth seeing, so that Aratus was swayed by the art itself, yet, drawn on again by his hatred of tyrants, he ordered it destroyed.

They say that Nealces the painter, a friend of Aratus, pleaded with him in tears, and, failing to win him over, declared that the fight ought to be against the tyrants themselves, not against the works they had left behind. "Let us leave, then, the chariot and the figure of Victory, and I will provide you Aristratus himself withdrawing from the panel." Aratus having consented, Nealces painted over Aristratus, and in his place painted in only a palm tree, and dared to add nothing else; but they say that the feet of Aristratus, in being painted over, escaped notice, remaining hidden beneath the chariot.

From these things Aratus was beloved, and by giving proof of himself he won the king over still more, and received as a gift for the city one hundred fifty talents, of which he brought forty at once with himself back to the Peloponnese, while the king afterward sent the rest divided into installments, portion by portion.

It was indeed a great thing to procure so much money for the citizens — money of which other generals and popular leaders, receiving even a small part from kings, would do wrong and enslave their people and drink away their fatherlands in advance; but greater still was the reconciliation and concord toward the wealthy which was brought about for the poor by means of this money, and the safety and security it gave to the whole people, and admirable was the moderation of the man amid such great power.

For though appointed sole arbiter and master with full authority over the settlement of the exiles' affairs, he did not undertake it alone, but added fifteen of the citizens to himself, with whose help, through much toil and great effort, he worked out and fitted together friendship and peace among the citizens. In return for this, not only did all the citizens in common render him fitting honors, but the exiles too, on their own, set up a bronze statue and inscribed upon it this elegiac couplet:

Counsels and contests and the defense of Greece bring this man close to the pillars of Heracles; but we, Aratus, having obtained your safe return, have set up your image, in payment for your virtue and your justice, to the saving gods on behalf of the savior, because you granted to your homeland a heaven-sent and divine good governance.

Having accomplished these things, Aratus had grown, through the gratitude they earned him, greater than the envy of his fellow citizens; but King Antigonus, vexed at him and wishing either to win him over entirely to friendship with himself or else to slander him to Ptolemy, kept showing him other marks of goodwill even though Aratus did not welcome them at all warmly, and once, while sacrificing to the gods at Corinth, sent portions of the meat on to Aratus at Sicyon.

And at the dinner, with many guests feasting, he spoke out before them all: "I used to think," he said, "that this young man of Sicyon was, by nature, simply generous-minded and fond of the people among whom he lived; yet it turns out he is also a shrewd judge of ways of life and of royal affairs. Formerly he looked past us, his hopes fixed abroad, and admired Egyptian wealth, hearing of elephants and fleets and courts; but now that he has seen, from behind the stage-curtain as it were, that all those affairs there are mere tragedy and stage-scenery, he has come over to us entirely.

"I myself, then, welcome the young man, having resolved to make use of him in everything, and I urge all of you likewise to count him among your friends." Taking these words as their pretext, the envious and malicious men vied with one another in letters, writing many harsh things against Aratus to Ptolemy, so that even he sent a reproachful message. So much envy and malice attends even the fiercely contested and passionately pursued friendships of kings and tyrants.

Aratus, having been chosen general for the first time by the Achaeans, ravaged the Locris and Calydonia that lay across from them, but arrived too late, though he came to help the Boeotians with ten thousand soldiers, for the battle in which they were defeated by the Aetolians near Chaeronea, with the Boeotarch Aboeocritus and a thousand men with him having fallen,

and a year later, general again, he set his mind on the exploit concerning Acrocorinth — caring nothing for the Sicyonians or the Achaeans in particular, but intending to drive out from there what was a common tyranny over the whole of Greece, the Macedonian garrison.

For Chares the Athenian, having had success in some battle against the king's generals, wrote to the Athenian people that he had won a victory sister to the one at Marathon; and one would not be wrong to call this deed a sister to the tyrant-slayings carried out by Pelopidas of Thebes and Thrasybulus of Athens — except that it differed from theirs in this, that its target was not fellow Greeks but a foreign and imported power.

For the Isthmus, blocking off the seas, brings the two regions together into one and joins our mainland; while Acrocorinth, a lofty mountain rising up from the middle of Greece, whenever a garrison occupies it, blocks the route and severs all contact, travel, military movement, and trade within the Isthmus, whether by land or by sea,

and makes the single man who holds it master, controlling the place with a garrison — so that it was no jest, but true, that the younger Philip habitually called the city of the Corinthians "the fetters of Greece."

So this place was ever fought over by all — kings and dynasts alike — and Antigonus's eagerness for it fell short in nothing of the most frenzied of passions, but he was wholly given over to devising, by treachery, how he might take it from those who held it, since an open attempt was plainly hopeless.

For when Alexander, under whose control the place was, died — as is said, by poison at Antigonus's hand — and Nicaea, Alexander's wife, took charge of affairs and kept guard over Acrocorinth, Antigonus lost no time dispatching his son Demetrius on a secret courtship of her, holding out sweet hopes of a royal marriage and a shared life, a prospect not unpleasant for an older woman to encounter in a young man,

he had won her over, using his son as a kind of bait against her; but since she would not give up the place, guarding it firmly instead, he pretended to pay it no mind, and celebrated their wedding at Corinth, and put on shows and gathered drinking-parties day after day, as one who had let his mind relax entirely into play and leisure out of pleasure and good cheer.

But when the moment was right, while Amoebeus was singing in the theater, he himself escorted Nicaea to the performance in a litter adorned royally, she exulting in the honor and utterly far from suspecting what was to come. But when he reached the branch of the road leading upward, he bade her go on ahead to the theater, while he, bidding farewell to Amoebeus and to the wedding, went up toward Acrocorinth, hurrying beyond what his age would suggest, and finding the gate shut, knocked on it with his staff, ordering it opened.

Those inside opened it, terror-struck. Having thus mastered the place, he could not contain himself, but drank in celebration through joy in the narrow streets, and went reveling through the marketplace with flute-girls and wearing garlands about him — an old man who had been through so many such reversals of fortune — greeting and hailing those he met; so much more does joy that comes without reasoning unsettle and toss the soul than does grief or fear.

But Antigonus, as has been said, having gained Acrocorinth, kept guard over it, setting as commander, along with the others he trusted most, Persaeus the philosopher. Aratus, while Alexander was still alive, had already made an attempt on the exploit, but once the Achaeans and Alexander concluded an alliance, he had abandoned it.

But now again he took up, from the beginning, another pretext for the exploit, as follows. Four brothers of Syrian birth were then living in Corinth, and one of them, named Diocles, was serving as a mercenary in the garrison. The other three, having stolen some royal gold, came to Sicyon to a certain banker Aegias, whom Aratus used for his own business dealings. They at once disposed of part of the gold, and the rest one of them, Erginus, kept quietly exchanging on his visits.

From this he became familiar with Aegias, and being drawn by him into conversation about the garrison, he said that, going up to his brother by the cliff, he had noticed a slanted cutting, leading to where the wall of the fortress had been built lowest; and when Aegias jested with him and said, "Then, my good man, for so small a sum of gold do you undertake royal exploits, when you could sell one hour's work for a great deal of money? Or is it not the case that housebreakers and traitors, once caught, have only one death to suffer?"

Erginus laughed, and at that time only admitted he was testing Diocles's resolve — for he did not entirely trust his other brothers — but a few days later he returned and agreed that he would lead Aratus to the wall, where the height was no more than fifteen feet, and that he would cooperate in the rest along with Diocles.

For his part, Aratus committed to paying them sixty talents should the venture succeed, or, should it fail while they all got away unharmed, a house and one talent apiece. Since that sum of sixty talents needed to be lodged with Aegias on behalf of Erginus and his companions, and Aratus neither had the money himself nor wished, by borrowing, to give anyone else knowledge of the affair, he took most of his drinking-cups and his wife's gold ornaments and pledged them to Aegias for the money.

So exalted was he in spirit and so great a passion did he have for noble deeds, that although he knew that Phocion and Epaminondas were reckoned the most just and the ablest of the Greeks for having rejected great gifts and refused to sacrifice honor for money, he himself chose to spend and advance funds for these ends in secret, in matters where he alone risked everything on behalf of everyone, and not even they knew what was being done.

For who would not marvel at, and even now still join in admiring, the greatness of soul of the man, who bought so great a danger at the price of so much money, and pledged what seemed his most valuable possessions, so that, smuggled in by night among the enemy, he might fight for his life, having taken as his only security his hope of honor, and nothing else from them?

The exploit, hazardous in itself, was made more hazardous still by a blunder that occurred right at the start, through ignorance. For Aratus's servant Technon was sent, along with Diocles, to reconnoiter the wall, but had not yet met Diocles face to face before this, and thought he had fixed his form and appearance in mind from what Erginus had described — curly-haired, dark-skinned, and beardless.

So he came to the appointed place and waited before the city, before the spot called the Bird, expecting Erginus to arrive along with Diocles; meanwhile, by chance, the first to come along was another brother of Erginus and Diocles, named Dionysius, who knew nothing of the plot and had no part in it, but resembled Diocles. Technon, moved by the likeness to the marks of the man's appearance, asked the man whether he had any dealing with Erginus.

When the man said he was his brother, Technon was altogether convinced he was speaking with Diocles, and rather than ask the man's name or seek any further confirmation, he clasped his right hand and spoke to him about the arrangements made with Erginus, and questioned him about them. The man, seizing on Technon's mistake, cunningly agreed to everything, and turning back toward the city led him along, conversing without arousing suspicion,

and now, when he was near the city and about to seize Technon at any moment, once again by chance Erginus met them. Perceiving the deception and the danger, he signaled to Technon with a nod to flee, and both of them, leaping away, escaped at a run back to Aratus. Yet Aratus did not lose heart in his hopes, but at once sent Erginus, bringing gold to Dionysius, to beg him to keep silent.

And Dionysius did this, and brought Dionysius with him to Aratus. But once he had come, they did not let him go again, but bound him and kept him guarded, shut up in a small house; and they themselves made ready for the attack.

When everything was ready, Aratus ordered the rest of his force to spend the night under arms, and taking four hundred picked men, who themselves did not know what was being done, except for a few, he brought them up to the gates near the Heraeum. It was the season of the year when summer is at its height, and the moon was full that month, and the night was cloudless and bright, so that the armor, gleaming back against the moonlight, gave cause for fear that it would not escape the notice of the guards.

But when the foremost men were already near, clouds rose up from the sea and covered both the city itself and the ground outside it, casting it in shadow; and there the rest sat down and loosened their sandals, for men make less noise and slip less often when they grip the rungs of the ladders with bare feet — while Erginus, taking seven young men dressed as travelers, made his way unnoticed to the gate.

And they killed the gatekeeper along with the guards beside him; simultaneously the ladders went up against the wall, and Aratus hastily got a hundred men across it, and, ordering the rest to follow as quickly as they could, pulled up the ladders and advanced through the city with his hundred men toward the citadel, already overjoyed, since he had gone unnoticed, at the thought that he was succeeding.

And after a while, still at some distance, a guard of four men with a torch met them, though not yet clearly seen, for they were still within the moon's shadow; but they themselves saw the men approaching from opposite. So drawing back a little behind some walls and building-plots, he set an ambush for the men, and three of them fell upon them and died, but the fourth, struck on the head with a sword, fled, shouting that the enemy was within,

and after a little the trumpets gave the signal, and the city rose up at what was happening, and the streets were full of men running about, and many lights, some already shining from below, others from above upon the citadel, and a confused, indistinct shouting broke out from every side.

Meanwhile Aratus, clinging to the path along the cliff, struggled on, slowly and with difficulty at first, not mastering it, but straying from the track, which was altogether hidden and overshadowed by the roughness of the ground and wound through many turns and detours before reaching the wall; then, wonderfully, as they say the moon does, parting the clouds and shining faintly through, it made clear the hardest part of the way, until he touched the wall at the point where he needed to; but there again it grew dark and hid itself as the clouds gathered together.

But the soldiers of Aratus who had been left behind outside the gates near the Heraeum, three hundred in number, when at last they slipped into the city, which was full of confusion of every kind and of lights, being unable to find the same track or to set foot in the trace of the others' path, crouched together in a huddle beside a shadowed hollow of the cliff, drawing themselves in, and there held out, suffering greatly and chafing at their helplessness.

For as the men with Aratus were now under attack from the citadel and fighting, a battle-cry went down below, and shouting echoed all around, confused and indistinct because of the reverberation from the mountains, so that it was unclear where it had begun; and while they could not tell which direction offered escape, Archelaus, the commander of the king's troops, having many soldiers with him, came up with shouting and trumpets, bearing down upon Aratus's men, and passed by the three hundred,

who rose up as if from an ambush and fell upon him and destroyed those whom they first attacked, and put the rest to flight, along with Archelaus himself, terrifying them, chasing them until the enemy broke apart and scattered through the streets of the town. Just as these men had won their fight, Erginus came from those fighting above, announcing that Aratus was engaged with the enemy, defending himself vigorously, and that a great struggle was taking place right at the wall, and that help was needed with speed; and they at once bade him lead the way.

And as they climbed they announced themselves by shouting, encouraging their friends; and the full moon made their weapons appear more numerous to the enemy because of the length of the line as it advanced, and the echoing quality of the night made the war-cry seem to come from many times as many men as there actually were,

and at last, pressing together, they drove out the enemy and gained the upper hand over the citadel and held the fortress, with day already dawning, and the sun at once shone upon the deed, and the rest of the force arrived from Sicyon to join Aratus, the Corinthians eagerly receiving them at the gates and seizing the king's men.

When everything seemed to be safely in hand, he came down from the citadel to the theater, an immense crowd streaming together out of desire to see him and to hear the speech he was about to give to the Corinthians.

Stationing the Achaeans at the entrances on either side, he himself came forward from the wings into the middle, wearing his breastplate and altered in appearance by weariness and lack of sleep, so much so that the elation and delight within him were held down by his body's fatigue,

and as the people, the moment he came forward, poured out their affection upon him, he shifted his spear to his right hand, and leaning his knee and body slightly to one side and steadying himself, he stood a long time in silence receiving their applause and shouts, as they praised his courage and envied his good fortune.

When they had stopped and settled down, he composed himself and delivered a speech fitting to the deed, on behalf of the Achaeans, and persuaded the Corinthians to become Achaeans, and handed over the keys of the gates, then for the first time in their possession since the days of Philip; and of Antigonus's generals he released Archelaus, who had been taken prisoner, but put Theophrastus to death,

since he was unwilling to leave. Persaeus, when the citadel was captured, escaped through to Cenchreae. Later, it is said, when at leisure, someone said to him that only the wise man seemed to him to be a general, and he replied, "But by the gods, this was once, above all, one of the doctrines of Zeno that pleased me too; but now I have changed my mind, since that young fellow from Sicyon has taught me otherwise." Such is the tale most people tell about Persaeus.

Aratus at once brought under his control the Heraeum and Lechaeum, and took possession of twenty-five royal ships, disposing by sale of five hundred horses along with four hundred Syrian captives; and the Achaeans guarded Acrocorinth with four hundred hoplites and fifty dogs with an equal number of huntsmen, kept in the fortress.

The Romans, in their admiration, called Philopoemen the last of the Greeks, as though no great man had arisen among the Greeks after him; but I myself would say that this deed was the last and most recent of Greek achievements, rivaling the finest both in daring and in fortune, as the events that immediately followed made clear.

The Megarians broke away from Antigonus and threw in their lot with Aratus, while the Troezenians, along with the Epidaurians, had themselves enrolled as members of the Achaean League; and having made his first expedition into Attica, he crossed to Salamis and ravaged it, treating the power of the Achaeans, as though released from a prison, as he pleased. To the Athenians he released the free men without ransom, offering them the first steps toward revolt.

He made Ptolemy an ally of the Achaeans, giving him command of the war both by land and sea. And his influence among the Achaeans grew so great that, the law barring consecutive terms as general, he was elected in alternate years instead, and in deed and in judgment ruled continuously. For they saw that he put nothing before the growth of the Achaeans - not wealth, not glory, not friendship with kings, not even the advantage of his own homeland.

For he believed that the cities, being weak on their own, were preserved by one another, bound together as it were by their common advantage, and just as the parts of the body, living and breathing together through their mutual growth, when torn apart and separated wither and rot, so likewise cities are destroyed by those who tear apart the common bond, but grow through one another whenever, being parts of some great whole, they obtain a common providence.

Seeing that the best of the neighboring peoples governed themselves, and grieved that the Argives were enslaved, he plotted to remove their tyrant Aristomachus, being ambitious both to restore freedom to the city, as nourishment owed to it, and to bring the city over to the Achaeans.

So men were found bold enough for it, led by Aeschylus and Charimenes the seer; but they had no swords, for it was forbidden to possess them, and heavy penalties were imposed by the tyrant on those who owned them. So Aratus had small daggers made for them in Corinth and sewn into pack-saddles; and having fitted these upon pack-animals carrying some ordinary-looking baggage, he sent them off to Argos.

But when Charimenes the seer took on another man to join in the deed, Aeschylus and his party grew indignant and proceeded on their own, having condemned Charimenes. He, perceiving this, in anger informed against the men, who were already on their way against the tyrant; most of them, getting word in time, fled from the marketplace and escaped through to Corinth.

Nevertheless, not long afterward slaves put Aristomachus to death, and Aristippus, a man still more depraved as tyrant than his predecessor, seized power before anyone else could. Aratus, taking with him such of the Achaeans as happened to be of military age, hastened swiftly to the city's aid, expecting to find the Argives eager for him.

But since most of them, through long habit, were now willingly enslaved and no one revolted to join him, he withdrew, having thereby furnished the Achaeans an accusation against him, as if he had brought about a war in time of peace. And they were brought to trial over this before the Mantineans, and Aristippus, prosecuting in Aratus's absence, won the case, with damages assessed at thirty minae,

and he plotted to kill Aratus himself, both hating and fearing him, with King Antigonus's assistance; and there were men stationed nearly everywhere to do this to them and watching for the opportunity.

But there is nothing like true and steadfast goodwill as a guard for a ruler; for when both the many and the powerful are trained to fear not the ruler, but for the ruler, then countless eyes become his eyes, countless ears become his ears, and he learns of events before they unfold. For this reason I wish to pause the narrative here and go through something concerning the manner of life of Aristippus, which the envied tyranny and the burden of that blessed and much-talked-of sole rule imposed upon him.

For that man, having Antigonus as an ally, and keeping many men for the safety of his person, and having left not one of his enemies alive in the city, would order his spearmen and guards to be stationed outside in the courtyard, and his household servants,

whenever he had dined, he would drive them all out as quickly as possible and shut the inner courtyard, and himself with his mistress would go down into a small upper room, closed by a trapdoor; and above this he would set his bed and sleep, as one so situated was likely to sleep - in turmoil and fear.

And the ladder would be removed by his mistress's mother, who shut it away in a separate chamber, only to bring it back at dawn and call up the admirable tyrant, as though he were a creeping thing coming out of its den. But he, having gained an unceasing rule not by force of arms but, by law, through excellence, wearing an ordinary cloak and mantle, has, as the declared common enemy of all tyrants that ever were, left behind to this very day the most highly regarded family among the Greeks.

But of those who seize citadels and keep bodyguards and set up arms and gates and trapdoors for the safety of their persons, few escape a violent death, like hares; and not a house, nor a family, nor a tomb possessing honored remembrance is left of any of them.

Against Aristippus, then, Aratus often came to grief, both secretly and openly, in his attempts to seize Argos; and once, setting up ladders, he climbed the wall with a few men in a bold venture, and killed the guards there who came to defend it.

Then, when day appeared and the tyrant attacked him from every side, the Argives -- as if the fight were not being fought for their own freedom but as though they were judging the contest at the Nemean Games -- sat as impartial and fair spectators of what was happening, keeping perfectly quiet, while Aratus, defending himself vigorously, was run through the thigh by a spear thrust by hand, yet held the ground he occupied and was not driven out, though harassed by the enemy until nightfall.

And if he had endured through the night as well in his exertion, he would not have failed; for the tyrant was already thinking of flight and had sent many of his own possessions ahead to the sea. But as it was, since no one reported this to Aratus, and his water had run out, and his wound had left him unable to manage his own body, he withdrew his troops.

When he had given up on this course, he openly invaded the enemy's camp and ravaged the territory of Argolis, and after a fierce battle around the river Charadrus against Aristippus he incurred blame for abandoning the contest and throwing away the victory; for while the rest of his force was, by common admission, gaining the upper hand and had advanced far forward in the pursuit, he himself, not so much forced back by those before him as distrustful of his success and afraid, withdrew in confusion into the camp.

When the rest, returning from the pursuit, took it hard that, though they had routed the enemy and struck down a much greater number than they themselves had lost, they had left it to the defeated to set up a trophy over them, he, ashamed, resolved again to fight it out over the trophy, and after letting one day pass he drew up the army again.

But when he perceived that the tyrant's men had grown more numerous and were resisting more boldly, he did not dare to engage, but withdrew after taking up his dead under truce. Nevertheless, by his skill and grace in dealing with people and in statecraft he made up for this failure, and won over Cleonae to the Achaeans, and held the Nemean Games at Cleonae, on the ground that it was traditional and more properly belonged to them,

and the Argives held them too, and then for the first time the immunity and safety granted to the contestants was violated, all the Achaeans who were caught having competed at Argos being sold as enemies as they passed through the country. So fierce and implacable was he in his hatred of tyrants.

A little later, hearing that Aristippus was plotting against Cleonae but was afraid, since Aratus was stationed at Corinth, he gathered an army by proclamation. And having ordered several days' provisions to be brought to Cenchreae, he went down there, drawing out Aristippus by a deception, so that he might, thinking Aratus absent, attack the people of Cleonae -- which is just what happened, for he was present at once, coming from Argos with his force.

But Aratus, having already turned back from Cenchreae to Corinth while it was still dark, and having secured the roads with guards, led the Achaeans in his train so well ordered and so swiftly and eagerly that not only on the march but even after arriving at Cleonae, while it was still night, and after drawing up in order for battle, they went undetected and unnoticed by Aristippus.

At daybreak, when the gates were thrown open and the trumpet gave the signal, he fell upon the enemy at a run with a war-cry and routed them at once, and pressed the pursuit toward wherever he suspected Aristippus was most likely to flee, since the ground offered many avenues of escape.

When the pursuit had gone as far as Mycenae, the tyrant was overtaken and cut down by a Cretan, as Deinias records, by the name of Tragiscus, and of the rest more than fifteen hundred fell. But Aratus, for all this brilliant success, and though he lost none of his own soldiers, did not manage to take Argos or to free it, since the party of Agias and the younger Aristomachus, with a royal force, slipped in and took control of affairs.

Now, the greater part of the slander and the talk and jibes and vulgar abuse spread by those who flattered the tyrants and told tales to please them -- that the Achaean general's bowels were upset before battles, and that a stupor and dizziness seized him the moment the trumpeter took his place beside him, and that after drawing up his forces and giving out the watchword, he would ask his subordinate officers and captains whether there was any need of him, since (he said) his knucklebones had been cast, and would go off to watch from a distance how things would turn out --

this took such hold that even philosophers in their schools, when inquiring whether the pounding of the heart and the change of color and the loosening of the bowels in the face of apparent dangers is a mark of cowardice or of some ill temperament and coldness of the body, would always name Aratus, as being a good general who nevertheless always suffered these symptoms before his contests.

So, having done away with Aristippus, he at once began plotting against Lydiades of Megalopolis, who was ruling as tyrant over his own homeland. Lydiades was not by nature ignoble or without ambition, nor was he -- like most sole rulers -- carried into this wrongdoing by intemperance and greed, but rather, still young, lifted up by a love of glory and the false and empty talk spread about tyranny as though it were a blessed and admirable thing, he had foolishly let himself be filled with grand notions, and once he had made himself tyrant he quickly grew weary of the heaviness that comes from sole rule.

At the same time envying Aratus his good fortune and fearing his designs, he set out on the noblest of courses by a change of heart: first ridding himself of the fear and hatred that came with a bodyguard and armed men, and then becoming a benefactor to his homeland; and summoning Aratus, he gave up his rule and transferred the city to the Achaeans. For this the Achaeans, extolling him, chose him general.

Being eager at once to surpass Aratus in reputation, he proposed, among many other undertakings that did not seem necessary, a campaign against the Lacedaemonians. Aratus, opposing him, was thought to be moved by jealousy; and indeed for a second time Lydiades was chosen general, with Aratus openly opposing him and pushing to see the post handed to a different candidate -- for he himself, as has been said, held office only every other year.

Now up to his third generalship Lydiades continued to fare well, holding office in alternation with Aratus every other year; but once he had openly displayed enmity and repeatedly brought accusations against him before the Achaeans, he was rejected and passed over, being thought to be matching a feigned character against genuine and unmixed virtue,

and just as Aesop says of the cuckoo, that when the small birds asked him why they fled from him, he told them that he would one day be a hawk, so it seems that a suspicion attaching to Lydiades from his time as tyrant kept following him, damaging his standing after his change of course.

Aratus won distinction also in the affairs concerning the Aetolians, on the occasion when the Achaeans were eager to engage them before reaching Megarian territory, and Agis, king of the Lacedaemonians, had arrived with a force and was urging the Achaeans on together with him into battle; Aratus opposed this, and though he endured much reproach and much mockery and ridicule for softness and cowardice, he did not abandon the calculation of advantage for the sake of what appeared shameful, but let the enemy cross the Geraneia unopposed and pass into the Peloponnese.

When, however, they suddenly advanced and took Pellene, he became an altogether different man, no longer minded to wait and delay for his forces to be gathered and assembled together from every quarter, but set out at once with those on hand against the enemy, who in their moment of victory had grown very weak through lack of discipline and through arrogance.

For the moment they entered the city the soldiers scattered through the houses, shoving each other aside and fighting over the plunder, while the commanders and captains busied themselves laying hold of the Pellenian women and daughters as prizes, and, pulling off their own helmets, placed them on the women's heads so no other man would claim them, the helmet serving as a mark of ownership. While they were absorbed in this business, word suddenly came that Aratus had descended upon them. And in the confusion natural to such disorder, since not everyone yet knew what danger they faced, the first Achaeans who met the enemy near the gates and outskirts were already beaten and fled, and as they were driven headlong they filled with confusion those who were trying to rally and come to the rescue.

In this confusion one of the captives, the daughter of Epigethes, a man of note, herself striking in beauty and stature, chanced to be seated within the temple of Artemis, where the officer in command of the picked troops had placed her after taking her for himself and setting the triple-crested helmet upon her; but suddenly she ran out toward the uproar,

and as she stood before the doors of the temple and looked down on the combatants from above, wearing the triple crest, she appeared to the citizens themselves a sight more solemn than human, and to the enemy, who thought they were seeing a divine apparition, she struck such shuddering and awe that no one turned to resist. The Pellenians themselves say that the goddess's image lies untouched the rest of the time, but whenever it is carried out, moved by the priestess, no one looks directly at it, but all turn away; for it is not only a fearful and harsh sight for men, but it also makes the trees barren and blights the fruits through whatever place it is carried.

This, they say, the priestess then carried out and turned continually to face the Aetolians, driving them out of their senses and robbing them of reason. Aratus himself says nothing of this sort in his memoirs, but says that he routed the Aetolians, and, bursting into the city together with them as they fled, drove them out by force, killing seven hundred. The deed was celebrated among the greatest, and the painter Timanthes made a vivid rendering of the battle in his composition.

Nevertheless, when many peoples and rulers combined against the Achaeans, Aratus at once set about making friendship with the Aetolians, and using Pantaleon, the most powerful man among the Aetolians, as his agent, he brought about not only peace but an alliance between the Achaeans and the Aetolians.

In his eagerness to free the Athenians he was slandered and spoken of badly by the Achaeans, because, though a treaty had been made and a truce was being kept toward the Macedonians, he made an attempt on the Piraeus. He himself, denying this in the memoirs he left behind, lays the blame on Erginus, together with

whom he had carried out the affair concerning the Acrocorinthus. For Erginus, he says, when he attacked the Piraeus on his own and, after his ladder broke, was being pursued, kept calling out and shouting the name of Aratus as if he were present, and so escaped by deceiving the enemy. Yet this does not seem a convincing defense; for it seems improbable that Erginus, a Syrian holding no public office, would have devised so great an enterprise by himself, unless he had Aratus as his leader and had received from him the force and the occasion for the attack.

Aratus himself made this plain, not twice or three times but many times, like men unhappily in love, attempting the Piraeus and not growing weary at his failures, but each time, having missed his hopes narrowly and by a hair's breadth, being called back to fresh confidence; and once, in fleeing through the Thriasian plain, he even wrenched his leg and had to undergo many incisions in treatment, and for a long time carried out his campaigns being carried about in a litter.

When Antigonus had died and Demetrius had taken over the kingship, Aratus pressed even harder against Athens and held the Macedonians in outright contempt. Therefore, when Bithys, the commander serving Demetrius, defeated him in battle near Phylacia, and much talk arose, some saying he had been captured, some that he was dead, the one who held the Piraeus

Diogenes, who was in command of the garrison, dispatched a letter to Corinth, in which he directed the Achaeans to abandon the city, on the grounds that Aratus was dead. It happened that Aratus himself was present in Corinth when the letter arrived, and after providing much delay and much laughter for Diogenes' men, they went away empty-handed. From Macedonia the king dispatched a vessel meant to carry Aratus back to him bound in fetters.

The Athenians, surpassing every degree of servility in their flattery toward the Macedonians, put on garlands the moment it was first announced that he was dead. For this reason he immediately marched against them in anger and advanced as far as the Academy; but then, persuaded otherwise, he did them no harm. The Athenians, coming to appreciate his virtue, when after the death of Demetrius they set out toward freedom, called upon him.

He, although at that time another man held the generalship of the Achaeans, and he himself lay bedridden with a long illness, nevertheless had himself carried in a litter and went to meet the city in its need, and won over Diogenes, who held command of the garrison, to restore the Piraeus and Munychia and Salamis and Sunium to the Athenians in exchange for a sum of one hundred fifty talents; toward this Aratus personally paid twenty talents to the city.

The people of Aegina and Hermione at once joined the Achaeans, as did the greater part of Arcadia. And since the Macedonians were occupied by certain neighboring and bordering wars, and the Aetolians were in alliance, the power of the Achaeans took a great increase.

Aratus, pursuing his old design, and unable to bear the tyranny at Argos, which lay so near them, sent to persuade Aristomachus to put the matter to the vote and bring the city over to the Achaeans, and to emulate Lydiades by being, with praise and honor, general of so great a people rather than, at risk and hated, tyrant of a single city.

When Aristomachus consented and bade Aratus send him fifty talents so that he might discharge and disband the soldiers in his pay, and when the money was being raised, Lydiades, who was still general and eager that this policy toward the Achaeans should be credited to himself alone, accused Aratus before Aristomachus of always being hostile and irreconcilable toward tyrants, and by persuading Aristomachus to entrust the matter to him instead, brought the man over to the Achaeans.

It was on this occasion above all that the councilors of the Achaeans made plain their goodwill and trust toward Aratus. For when he spoke against it out of anger, they drove away Aristomachus and his party; but when he was won over again and himself began, in person, to speak on their behalf, they voted everything quickly and eagerly, and admitted the Argives and Phliasians into the confederacy, and a year later chose Aristomachus himself as general.

He, doing well among the Achaeans and set on invading Laconia, called for Aratus to come from Athens. Aratus wrote to him forbidding the campaign, not wanting the Achaeans to become entangled with Cleomenes, who was bold and dangerously on the rise; but since Aristomachus was set on it in any case, he complied, and being present, took part in the campaign.

It was then, too, that when Cleomenes appeared near Pallantium and Aratus prevented Aristomachus from joining battle with him, he was accused by Lydiades, and when he entered into a contest and rival candidacy over the generalship, he prevailed in the vote and was chosen general for the twelfth time.

In this generalship, defeated by Cleomenes near Lycaeum, he fled; and after wandering through the darkness, a rumor arose that he had perished, and word of his supposed death circulated widely among the Greeks. But he made it back unharmed, and having gathered his soldiers together, he was not content to withdraw in safety,

but making the best possible use of the occasion, when no one expected it or was reckoning on what would follow, he suddenly fell upon the Mantineans, who were allies of Cleomenes, and taking the city, he threw in a garrison and made the resident aliens citizens; and, though defeated, he alone gained what the Achaeans, even in victory, could not easily have won.

Again, when the Lacedaemonians campaigned against Megalopolis, he came to its aid, but was reluctant to give Cleomenes, who was skirmishing, an opening, and he resisted the Megalopolitans when they pressed him to act, being naturally ill-suited to pitched battles in any case, and at that time being inferior in numbers and matched against a bold and still young man whose spirit had not yet begun to wane and whose ambition was unchecked; and he thought that the reputation which Cleomenes was winning through daring, starting from nothing, must be guarded, once he himself possessed it, by caution.

Nevertheless, when the light-armed troops ran out and pushed the Spartans back to their camp and scattered around the tents, Aratus even so did not press the advantage, but took a ravine that lay between and stationed his men there, preventing the hoplites from crossing it. Lydiades, deeply stirred by what was happening and reviling Aratus, called back the cavalry to himself, insisting that they show themselves to the pursuers and neither throw away the victory nor abandon him as he fought for his country.

As many good men rallied to him and he was emboldened, he charged the enemy's right wing, routed it, and pursued, but carried away without restraint by spirit and ambition into broken ground full of planted trees and wide ditches, where Cleomenes attacked him, he fell, having fought the most splendid of fights at the very gates of his own country,

while the rest, fleeing back into the phalanx and throwing the hoplites into confusion, filled the whole army with the disaster of defeat. Aratus incurred great blame, being thought to have abandoned Lydiades; and, compelled by the Achaeans, who were withdrawing in anger, he followed them to Aegium. There, when they had assembled, they voted not to give him money nor to maintain mercenaries for him, but that he should provide for himself, if he needed to make war.

Having been so insulted, he resolved at once to lay down the seal and give up the generalship; but on reflection he held on for the time, and leading the Achaeans out toward Orchomenus, he gave battle to Megistonous, the stepfather of Cleomenes, and having won it, killed three hundred men and took Megistonous himself alive.

Since he was accustomed to hold the generalship every other year, when the rotation brought his name up once more and he was summoned to serve, he refused the office under oath, and Timoxenus was chosen general. His anger at the crowds was said to be the reason for his refusal, but this was not credible; the true cause was the situation surrounding the Achaeans, since Cleomenes was no longer, as before, encroaching quietly and by degrees, nor meddling in the political offices,

but after he had killed the ephors, redistributed the land, brought in many of the resident aliens into citizenship, and thereby gained power answerable to no one, he was now openly pressing upon the Achaeans and claiming the leadership for himself. For this reason they blame Aratus for having, like a helmsman, let go and handed over the tiller to another amid a great swell and storm of affairs, at a time when it was still possible for him, standing at his post even against their will,

to save the common cause; but if he had despaired of the situation and of the power of the Achaeans, he should have yielded to Cleomenes, and not again let the Peloponnese be barbarized with Macedonian garrisons, nor filled the Acrocorinthus with Illyrian and Gallic arms, nor brought in as masters over the cities, under the euphemism of allies, the very men whom in his actions he was constantly out-generaling and out-maneuvering in politics, while in his memoirs he kept on abusing them.

But if Cleomenes was, let it be said so, lawless and tyrannical, still the Heraclids were his fathers and Sparta his homeland, and those who set any store at all by Greek nobility ought to think even the most obscure man of that city worthy to be made leader in preference to the foremost of the Macedonians. And yet Cleomenes was asking for the leadership from the Achaeans on the understanding that he would do the cities much good in return for that honor and title,

whereas Antigonus, once he had been proclaimed supreme commander by land and sea, would not comply until the price of his leadership, the Acrocorinthus, had been agreed to him — exactly imitating Aesop's hunter. For he did not set foot among the Achaeans, for all their pleading and offering themselves through embassies and decrees, until they consented to be bridled, as it were, with a garrison and hostages.

And yet Aratus uses every possible argument in pleading necessity as his defense; but Polybius says that long before, even before the necessity arose, he had been suspicious of Cleomenes' boldness and was in secret communication with Antigonus, and that it was he who arranged for the Megalopolitans to approach and implore the Achaeans to summon Antigonus in. For it was they who suffered most from the fighting, given that Cleomenes kept on ravaging and despoiling their territory,

and Phylarchus has recorded these same events likewise, though where Polybius does not corroborate him he is not altogether to be trusted. For he becomes carried away with enthusiasm whenever he touches on Cleomenes, out of partiality, and, as though pleading a case in court, he continues throughout his history as advocate for the one and adversary of the other.

The Achaeans, then, lost Mantinea, Cleomenes taking it again, and after suffering a heavy defeat in the battle at Hecatombaeum, panic seized them so completely that they at once sent to summon Cleomenes to Argos, offering him the leadership,

but Aratus, upon discovering that Cleomenes was advancing and had reached the vicinity of Lerna with his forces, took fright and sent envoys asking him to come, as to friends and allies, with three hundred men, or, if he distrusted them, to take hostages. Cleomenes, saying this was an insult and a mockery of himself, turned back, having written a letter to the Achaeans full of many accusations and slanders against Aratus.

Aratus too wrote letters against Cleomenes, and abuse and slander were exchanged, the two men even reviling each other's marriages and wives. After this Cleomenes dispatched a herald with a formal declaration of war against the Achaeans, and came very close to seizing the city of the Sicyonians by treachery without their noticing; but being turned aside just short of it, he attacked Pellene, and when the general of the Achaeans had been driven out, he took the city. A little later he also took Pheneus and Penteleum.

Then at once the Argives went over to him, and a garrison was imposed on the Phliasians; and, in a word, none of the gains the Achaeans had made was any longer secure, but a great confusion suddenly surrounded Aratus, as he watched the Peloponnese shaking and the cities everywhere rising up under the influence of revolutionaries.

For nothing was quiet, and no one was content with the present state of things, but even within the ranks of the Sicyonians and Corinthians there proved to be many who had been in secret communication with Cleomenes and, out of a long-standing private desire for power against the common interest, were harboring designs treacherously.

Against these men Aratus, given unaccountable authority, put to death those in Sicyon who had been corrupted, but when he tried to hunt out and punish those in Corinth, he provoked to fury a populace already sick and resentful of its subjection under the Achaean government. So they rushed together to the temple of Apollo and summoned Aratus to them, resolved to kill him or take him captive ahead of their uprising.

He himself came leading his horse by hand, as though suspecting nothing and distrusting no one; but when many leaped up and began abusing and accusing him, he kept his face composed and his voice mild, and told them to sit down and not shout in disorder while standing, but to let those outside the doors come in too; and even as he said this he was quietly slipping away, as if to hand his horse over to someone.

Having thus slipped free, and speaking without any show of alarm to the Corinthians he met, and telling them to go to the Apollonium, he made his way unnoticed to a point near the citadel; then, leaping onto his horse and charging Cleopater, the commander of the garrison, to hold it firmly, he rode off to Sicyon, with thirty soldiers following him, the rest having deserted and melted away.

The Corinthians, discovering his flight a little afterward, gave chase, but failing to catch him, they sent for Cleomenes and handed over their city to him — who had never imagined he would gain from them so great a prize as this, which he obtained only because they had let Aratus slip through their fingers. So Cleomenes, once those who lived in the district called Acte had joined him and delivered up their cities, set about fencing off and walling in Acrocorinth.

Not many of the Achaeans came together to Aratus at Sicyon; but an assembly was held, and the office of general with full powers was conferred on him, and he formed a bodyguard from his own fellow-citizens — he who for thirty-three years had held public office among the Achaeans, and had stood first among the Greeks in power and reputation, but was now stripped bare, at a loss, and broken, tossed about, as if in the wreck of his homeland, amid such surging waves and danger.

For the Aetolians, when he asked for help, refused it; and the city of Athens, though inclined by goodwill toward Aratus to help, was held back by Eurycleides and Micion. And though Aratus had both money and a house in Corinth, Cleomenes touched none of it and let no one else touch it either; instead, he sent for his friends and stewards and ordered them to manage and guard everything, as men who would render account to Aratus;

and privately he sent Tripylus to him, and again Megistonous, his stepfather, promising him many other things, and twelve talents a year as a stipend — outbidding by half what Ptolemy gave, for Ptolemy used to send Aratus six talents a year. He asked to be proclaimed leader of the Achaeans and to guard Acrocorinth jointly with them.

But when Aratus replied that he did not control affairs, but was rather controlled by them, and seemed to Cleomenes to be mocking him, Cleomenes at once invaded the territory of Sicyon, ravaging and destroying it, and sat down before the city for three months, while Aratus held firm and was in doubt whether he should admit Antigonus on condition of handing over Acrocorinth — for otherwise Antigonus was unwilling to help.

The Achaeans, having gathered at Aegium, called Aratus there. But there was danger in the crossing, since Cleomenes was encamped near the city; and the citizens tried to hold him back, begging him not to risk his person while the enemy was so near, and saying they would not permit it. Even the women and children clung to him now, embracing him and weeping as though he were a common father and savior.

Nevertheless, encouraging and consoling them, he rode out on horseback to the sea, taking ten friends with him and his son, now a young man; and finding ships anchored there, they embarked and were carried to Aegium to the assembly, where they voted to summon Antigonus and to hand over Acrocorinth.

Aratus also sent his son to Antigonus along with the other hostages, at which the Corinthians, bitterly resentful, seized and stripped his estate, handing his house over to Cleomenes as a present.

As Antigonus was now approaching with his forces — he was leading twenty thousand Macedonian foot and thirteen hundred horse — Aratus, accompanied by the magistrates, sailed to meet him at Pegae, slipping past the enemy, though he was not altogether confident of Antigonus nor trusting toward the Macedonians. For he knew that he had risen to power by the harm he had done them, and that the first and greatest foundation of his political career had been his old hostility toward the elder Antigonus.

But seeing the inexorable necessity bearing down upon him, and the occasion which enslaves even those who seem to rule, he went forward to face the ordeal. And Antigonus, when someone told him that Aratus was approaching, greeted the others with moderate and ordinary courtesy, but received Aratus, even at their very first meeting, with extraordinary honor; and as he came to know him further, finding him a good man and a man of sense, he drew him closer than mere necessity required.

For Aratus was useful not only in great affairs, but was also, beyond anyone else, a delightful companion for a king at leisure. Hence, young as Antigonus was, once he perceived that the man's nature held nothing idle for royal friendship, he continued to make use of him more than of any other, whether Achaean or Macedonian, among all those with him;

and the sign turned out just as the god had shown it in the sacrifices. For it is said that not long before, when Aratus was sacrificing, two gall-bladders were found in the liver enclosed within a single fatty membrane; and the seer said that this meant he would soon come into closest friendship with those who were most hateful and hostile to him. At the time the saying passed unnoticed, since Aratus in any case placed little trust in sacrifices and prophecies, but relied on reasoning instead;

but later, when the war was going well, Antigonus gathered a banquet in Corinth and, entertaining many guests, placed Aratus above himself at table; and after a little he asked for a cloak, and inquired whether Aratus too felt the cold, and when he said he was indeed quite chilled, Antigonus told him to move closer, and when a rug was brought, the servants wrapped it around them both together — then Aratus, remembering those sacrifices, broke into laughter and related to the king the omen and what had been foretold. But this happened at a later time.

At Pegae, having given and received oaths, they marched at once against the enemy, and there were battles around the city, Cleomenes having fortified it well and the Corinthians defending eagerly. Meanwhile Aristotle the Argive, a friend of Aratus, sent word to him secretly, saying he would bring about the city's revolt if Aratus would come with soldiers.

When Aratus reported this to Antigonus and, taking fifteen hundred men, sailed quickly from the Isthmus to Epidaurus, the Argives rose up beforehand and attacked Cleomenes' men and shut them up in the acropolis; but Cleomenes, learning of this, and fearing that the enemy might seize Argos and cut him off from his safe return home, abandoned Acrocorinth and went to help while it was still night.

He got through to Argos just in time and turned the enemy back for a moment; but a little later, when Aratus was advancing and the king was appearing with his forces, he withdrew to Mantinea. From this point all the cities came over again to the Achaeans, Antigonus took over Acrocorinth, and Aratus, having been made general by the vote of the Argives, won them over to bestowing on Antigonus, as a gift, the estates of both the tyrants and the traitors.

And they tortured Aristomachus at Cenchreae and drowned him, for which Aratus was most severely blamed, since the man was not wicked, but had actually been persuaded and convinced by Aratus himself to give up his rule and bring the city over to the Achaeans — yet Aratus stood by and let him be destroyed against all law.

And now people were laying other charges against him besides: that they had given the city of the Corinthians to Antigonus as a gift, as if it were some chance village, while they had allowed him, after sacking Orchomenus, to install a Macedonian garrison there; and that they had voted not to write to any other king, nor to send embassies to anyone else, without Antigonus's consent;

and that they were forced to feed and pay the Macedonians, and celebrated sacrifices, processions, and games in Antigonus's honor, the citizens of Aratus's own city having begun it all and having welcomed Antigonus into their city as Aratus's guest — yet they blamed him for everything, not realizing that, having handed over the reins to Antigonus and being swept along by the momentum of royal power, he was master of nothing anymore except his voice alone, and even that voice carried a dangerous kind of freedom of speech.

For indeed many of the things being done openly grieved Aratus, as in the matter of the statues: Antigonus restored the toppled statues honoring Argos's former tyrants, yet he pulled down those honoring the men who had seized Acrocorinth — all except Aratus's own; and though Aratus pleaded much on this account, he did not persuade him.

It also seemed that what was done at Mantinea was not handled by the Achaeans in a manner worthy of Greeks. For having conquered them by Antigonus's help, they killed the most eminent and foremost men, sold some of the rest, and sent others in chains to Macedonia, enslaved the children and women, and of the money collected they divided a third among themselves and gave the other two parts to the Macedonians.

This much, at least, followed the law of retaliation; for although anger driving one to deal so brutally with kinsmen sharing the same blood is a dreadful thing, still, Simonides observes, necessity can make even a bitter remedy pleasant, much as one might apply soothing treatment to a soul that is inflamed and suffering. But what was done afterward concerning the city cannot be set down to Aratus's credit as either honorable or necessary.

For when the Achaeans had received the city as a gift from Antigonus and had resolved to resettle it, Aratus himself, serving as general and named its founder, ordained that its name change from Mantinea to Antigoneia — the name it still bears to this day; and it seems that because of him lovely Mantinea has been utterly effaced, while the city survives named after the very men who destroyed and slew its citizens.

After this Cleomenes, defeated in a great battle at Sellasia, abandoned Sparta and sailed away to Egypt; and Antigonus, having done everything just and humane toward Aratus, withdrew to Macedonia, and there, already falling ill, sent his successor to the throne, Philip — not yet quite a young man — into the Peloponnese, instructing him to give first attention to Aratus, and by that means to handle affairs with the cities and gain acquaintance with the Achaeans.

And indeed, once Aratus had taken him in hand, he disposed him in such a way that he dispatched him back to Macedonia brimming with warm regard for Aratus himself, and charged with keen ambition and zeal for the affairs of Greece.

When Antigonus died, the Aetolians, despising the Achaeans for their slackness — for having grown accustomed to being saved by other men's hands, and having sheltered themselves under Macedonian arms, they were living in great idleness and disorder — attacked the affairs of the Peloponnese; and they made the plundering of the territory of Patrae and Dyme a mere incident along their route, and, invading Messene, laid it waste.

At this Aratus was indignant, and seeing that Timoxenus, then general of the Achaeans, was hesitating and wasting time, his generalship already coming to its end, Aratus — who had been chosen to hold office after him — anticipated his term by five days in order to help the Messenians. And gathering the Achaeans, whose bodies were untrained and whose minds were slack for war, he was defeated near Caphyae:

And though he seemed to have generaled the campaign with a little more spirit, he then again blunted and let slip the whole affair and its hopes, so that he repeatedly gave the Aetolians their opening and put up with it, looking on as they ran riot, so to speak, through the Peloponnese with great licentiousness and insolence.

So once again they stretched out their hands toward Macedonia and drew Philip down into Greek affairs, not least because of his goodwill and trust toward Aratus, hoping that in everything they would find him easy to deal with and tractable.

And then, for the first time, the king was won over by Apelles and Megaleas and certain other courtiers who slandered Aratus, and joining forces at the elections with the opposing faction, he worked hard to have the Achaeans choose Eperatus as general.

But when Eperatus was held in complete contempt by the Achaeans, and nothing useful got done because Aratus took no part, Philip realized he had missed the whole mark, and turning back again to Aratus he was wholly his, and as his own fortunes grew both in power and in reputation, he became dependent on the man, as one who owed his good name and his growth to him.

And Aratus seemed to everyone to be a good tutor not only in democracy but also in kingship, for his own principles and character showed through in the king's actions like a color. For instance, the young man's moderation toward the Lacedaemonians who had done wrong, and his dealings with the Cretans, through which he brought over the whole island in a few days, and the campaign against the Aetolians, which was carried out with remarkable effect, all won Philip a reputation for tractability and Aratus one for good counsel,

and because of this the royal favorites, envious, and getting nowhere with their secret slanders, took to abusing him openly and clashing with him at drinking parties with much licentiousness and buffoonery; once they even pelted him with stones and chased him as he was leaving for his tent after dinner. At this Philip was angry and immediately fined them twenty talents, and later, when they seemed to be corrupting and disturbing affairs, he put them to death.

But when, elated by the success of fortune, Philip's affairs kept sprouting many great desires, and his innate wickedness, forcing off the mask it wore against its own nature and rising to the surface, little by little stripped bare and revealed his character — first privately he wronged the younger Aratus in the matter of his wife, and for a long time it went unnoticed that he was a guest and companion at their hearth; then he grew harsh toward the political affairs of the Greeks and was already plainly shaking Aratus off.

The affair at Messene furnished the beginning of suspicion. For when the Messenians fell into factional strife, Aratus was late in coming to help, but Philip, arriving in the city a day earlier, at once cast a kind of madness between the two sides against each other, privately asking the generals of the Messenians whether they had no laws against the common people, and privately again asking the leaders of the common people whether they had no hands against those playing the tyrant.

As a result of this the magistrates, emboldened, laid hold of the popular leaders, while the people, coming on with the crowd, killed the magistrates and nearly two hundred of the others besides.

When Philip had wrought so terrible a deed, and was still further setting the Messenians against one another, Aratus came upon the scene, and he himself was plainly taking it hard, and did not restrain his son from rebuking Philip bitterly and reviling him. The young man was thought to be in love with Philip; and speaking then he told him that he no longer even appeared handsome to him after doing such things, but the ugliest of all men.

Philip made no reply to him, although he was ready to burst out, restraining himself in anger and often snarling while the young man spoke; but toward the elder Aratus, as one who had borne what was said calmly and was a man of moderation and political sense by nature, he stretched out his right hand and raised him up from the theater, and led him toward Mount Ithome to sacrifice to Zeus and to view the place,

for it is no less well-fortified than the Acrocorinthus, and whoever takes a garrison there becomes difficult and hard to dislodge for those living around it. He went up and offered sacrifice; once the diviner had carried over the ox's entrails, he took them up in both hands and displayed them alternately to Aratus and to Demetrius of Pharos, bending toward each man and asking what he read in the sacred signs — that he himself would hold the citadel, or that he would give it back to the Messenians.

Demetrius laughed and said, "If you have the soul of a seer, you will let the place go; but if that of a king, you will hold the ox by both horns," hinting at the Peloponnese, as though, should he add Ithome to Acrocorinthus, it would be entirely under his hand and subdued.

But Aratus kept quiet for a long while, and when Philip pressed him to say what he thought, he said, "Philip, many are the mountains of the Cretans, and great ones, and many are the heights of the Boeotians and the Phocians that rise up out of the earth; and there are, I suppose, many places of the Acarnanians too, some inland, some by the sea, possessing wonderful natural strongholds; but you have seized none of these, and yet all of them willingly do what you command.

For bandits cling to rocks and hold to cliffs, but for a king nothing is stronger or more secure than trust and goodwill. These are what open the Cretan sea to you, these are what open the Peloponnese. Setting out from these, you, at such an age, have already become leader of some and master of others." While he was still speaking, Philip handed the entrails back to the seer, and taking hold of Aratus's hand said, "Come then, let us go this same way," as though he had been forced by him and had the city taken from him.

Aratus, now gradually drifting away from the court and little by little withdrawing himself from his intimacy with Philip, when Philip was crossing into Epirus and asked him to join the campaign, refused and stayed behind, fearing to be filled with the bad repute of what Philip was doing.

But when Philip, having most shamefully lost his ships to the Romans and having failed utterly in his undertakings, came back to the Peloponnese, and again attempted to cheat the Messenians, and, unable to hide it, wronged them openly and ravaged their territory, Aratus turned against him completely and was estranged from him, having by then also perceived the wrongs done in his own household, and bearing it painfully himself while concealing it from his son;

for it remained for him only to know that he had been wronged, and nothing more, being unable to take revenge. For Philip seems to have undergone the greatest and most paradoxical change, becoming, instead of a gentle king and a temperate youth, a licentious man and an utterly ruined tyrant; but in truth his nature had not changed at all; rather, once he felt safe enough, he simply unveiled a wickedness that fear had long kept hidden from view.

For that his feeling toward Aratus, bred in him from the beginning, was mixed with shame and fear, he made clear by what he did concerning him. Desiring to do away with the man, and believing that he could not even be a free man, let alone a tyrant or a king, while Aratus lived, he did not attempt it by force, but ordered Taurion, one of his generals and friends, to accomplish it by some undetectable means, chiefly through poisons,

in his own absence. Taurion, having made himself familiar with Aratus, gave him a drug — not a sharp and violent one, but one of the kind that at first only rouses a low fever and a heavy cough somewhere within, then goes on, step by gradual step, to bring about death. Yet it did not escape Aratus's notice; but since there was no use in exposing it, he bore the affliction gently and in silence, as though suffering from some common and ordinary illness.

Except that once, when one of his intimates was present in his room and he spat up blood, and that man saw it and was amazed, he said, "These, Cephalon, are the wages of royal friendship."

He died in this manner at Aegium, holding the generalship for a seventeenth term, and the Achaeans were determined that a funeral and memorials worthy of his life be held in that very place, the Sicyonians took it as a calamity that the body should not be laid to rest among them.

They persuaded the Achaeans to permit it, but since there was an ancient law that no one be buried within the walls, and a strong religious scruple attached to the law, they sent to Delphi to ask the Pythia about the matter. And she gave them this oracle in response: "Do you deliberate, Sicyon, over the perpetual life-ransom of Aratus, concerning the sacred rites and the funeral feast of your departed lord? For whatever is a burden to this man, and whatever burdens the earth because of him, is a sin against both heaven and sea."

When the oracle was brought back, all the Achaeans rejoiced, and the Sicyonians especially, turning their grief into a festival, at once brought the body from Aegium into the city, crowned and dressed in white, amid paeans and choral dances, and choosing a conspicuous spot they buried him there as though he were the founder and savior of the city.

And it is called to this day the Arateion, and they offer sacrifice to him — one sacrifice on the day he freed the city from tyranny, the fifth day of Daisios, the month the Athenians name Anthesterion, and this rite they call the Soteria; and the other on the day of the month on which the man was born, which they keep in memory. Of the first sacrifice the priest of Zeus the Savior took the lead, of the second the priest of Aratus, wearing a headband not entirely white but shot through with purple,

and hymns were sung to the lyre by the artists devoted to Dionysus, and the gymnasiarch joined the procession, leading the boys and the young men, and after him followed the council wearing garlands, and of the other citizens whoever wished. Small tokens of these observances they still preserve, keeping them sacred on those days, but most of the honors have lapsed through time and other circumstances.

But the elder Aratus, it is recorded, lived thus and was of such a character by nature. As for his son, Philip, being naturally polluted and violent with cruelty, drove him out of his senses not with deadly but with maddening drugs, and turned him toward terrible and monstrous attacks of frenzy, so that he pursued strange and shameful acts and ruinous passions, with the result that death, though he was young and in his prime, came to him not as a misfortune but as a release from evils and a salvation,

and Philip indeed continued to pay no small penalty to Zeus the god of hospitality and friendship for this unholy deed. For, defeated in war by the Romans, he handed over his affairs to them, and, cast out of the rest of his power and giving up all his ships but five, and agreeing to pay in addition a thousand talents and handing over his son as a hostage, he obtained Macedonia and its tribute-paying territories out of pity. But by continually putting to death the best men and his closest kin he filled the whole kingdom with dread and hatred of him,

and the one good fortune he had gained amid so many evils — a son outstanding in virtue — this one he destroyed out of envy and jealousy of the honor he received from the Romans, and handed over the kingdom to the other, Perseus, who they say was not legitimate but a supposititious child, born of a certain seamstress, Gnathaenion. This man Aemilius led in triumph, and here the succession of the Antigonid kingdom came to an end; but the family of Aratus survived in Sicyon and in Pellene down to our own time.

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