Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
also one kind of human skill and sagacity which is easily
daunted and disturbed in actions done in the open day and before
the world, and recovers all its self-possession in secret and
covert enterprises; which inequality is occasioned in noble
minds for want of philosophy, a mere wild and uncultivated fruit
of a virtue without true knowledge coming up; as might be made
out by examples.
Aratus, therefore, having associated himself and his city to the
Achaeans, served in the cavalry, and made himself much beloved
by his commanding officers for his exact obedience; for though
he had made so large an addition to the common strength as that
of his own credit and the power of his country, yet he was as
ready as the most ordinary person to be commanded by the Achaean
general of the time being, whether he were a man of Dymae, or of
Tritaea, or any yet meaner town than these. Having also a
present of five and twenty talents sent him from the king, he
took them, but gave them all to his fellow-citizens, who wanted
money, amongst other purposes, for the redemption of those who
had been taken prisoners.
But the exiles being by no means to be satisfied, disturbing
continually those that were in possession of their estates,
Sicyon was in great danger of falling into perfect desolation;
so that, having no hope left but in the kindness of Ptolemy, he
resolved to sail to him, and to beg so much money of him as
might reconcile all parties. So he set sail from Mothone beyond
Malea, designing to make the direct passage. But the pilot not
being able to keep the vessel up against a strong wind and high
waves that came in from the open sea, he was driven from his
course, and with much ado got to shore in Andros, an enemy's
land, possessed by Antigonus, who had a garrison there. To
avoid which he immediately landed, and, leaving the ship, went
up into the country a good way from the sea, having along with
him only one friend, called Timanthes; and throwing themselves
into some ground thickly covered with wood, they had but an ill
night's rest of it. Not long after, the commander of the troops
came, and, inquiring for Aratus, was deceived by his servants,
who had been instructed to say that he had fled at once over
into the island of Euboea. However, he declared the chip, the
property on board of her, and the servants, to be lawful prize,
and detained them accordingly. As for Aratus, after some few
days, in his extremity by good fortune a Roman ship happened to
put in just at the spot in which he made his abode, sometimes
peeping out to seek his opportunity, sometimes keeping close.
She was bound for Syria; but going aboard, he agreed with the
master to land him in Caria. In which voyage he met with no
less danger on the sea than before. From Caria being after much
time arrived in Egypt, he immediately went to the king, who had
a great kindness for him, and had received from him many
presents of drawings and paintings out of Greece. Aratus had a
very good judgment in them, and always took care to collect and
send him the most curious and finished works, especially those
of Pamphilus and Melanthus.
For the Sicyonian pieces were still in the height of their
reputation, as being the only ones whose colors were lasting; so
that Apelles himself, even after he had become well known and
admired, went thither, and gave a talent to be admitted into the
society of the painters there, not so much to partake of their
skill, which he wanted not, but of their credit. And
accordingly Aratus, when he freed the city, immediately took
down the representations of the rest of the tyrants, but
demurred a long time about that of Aristratus, who flourished in
the time of Philip. For this Aristratus was painted by
Melanthus and his scholars, standing by a chariot, in which a
figure of Victory was carried, Apelles himself having had a
hand in it, as Polemon the geographer reports. It was an
extraordinary piece, and therefore Aratus was fain to spare it
for the workmanship, and yet, instigated by the hatred he bore
the tyrants, commanded it to be taken down. But Nealces the
painter, one of Aratus's friends, entreated him, it is said,
with tears in his eyes, to spare it, and, finding he did not
prevail with him, told him at last he should carry on his war
with the tyrants, but with the tyrants alone: "Let therefore the
chariot and the Victory stand, and I will take means for the
removal of Aristratus;" to which Aratus consenting, Nealces
blotted out Aristratus, and in his place painted a palm-tree,
not daring to add anything else of his own invention. The feet
of the defaced figure of Aristratus are said to have escaped
notice, and to be hid under the chariot. By these means Aratus
got favor with the king, who, after he was more fully acquainted
with him, loved him so much the more, and gave him for the
relief of his city one hundred and fifty talents; forty of which
he immediately carried away with him, when he sailed to
Peloponnesus, but the rest the king divided into installments,
and sent them to him afterwards at different times.
Assuredly it was a great thing to procure for his
fellow-citizens a sum of money, a small portion of which had
been sufficient, when presented by a king to other captains and
popular leaders, to induce them to turn dishonest, and betray
and give away their native countries to him. But it was a much
greater, that by means of this money he effected a
reconciliation and good understanding between the rich and poor,
and created quiet and security for the whole people. His
moderation, also, amidst so great power was very admirable. For
being declared sole arbitrator and plenipotentiary for settling
the questions of property in the case of the exiles, he would
not accept the commission alone, but, associating with himself
fifteen of the citizens, with great pains and trouble he
succeeded in adjusting matters, and established peace and
good-will in the city, for which good service, not only all the
citizens in general bestowed extraordinary honors upon him, but
the exiles, apart by themselves, erecting his statue in brass,
inscribed on it these elegiac verses: --
Your counsels, deeds, and skill for Greece in war
Known beyond Hercules's pillars are;
But we this image, O Aratus, gave
Of you who saved us, to the gods who save,
By you from exile to our homes restored,
That virtue and that justice to record,
To which the blessing Sicyon owes this day
Of wealth that's shared alike, and laws that all obey.
By his success in effecting these things, Aratus secured himself
from the envy of his fellow-citizens, on account of the benefits
they felt he had done them; but king Antigonus being troubled in
his mind about him, and designing either wholly to bring him
over to his party, or else to make him suspected by Ptolemy,
besides other marks of his favor shown to him, who had little
mind to receive them, added this too, that, sacrificing to the
gods in Corinth, he sent portions to Aratus at Sicyon, and at
the feast, where were many guests, he said openly, "I thought
this Sicyonian youth had been only a lover of liberty and of his
fellow-citizens, but now I look upon him as a good judge of the
manners and actions of kings. For formerly he despised us, and,
placing his hopes further off, admired the Egyptian riches,
hearing so much of their elephants, fleets, and palaces. But
after seeing all these at a nearer distance, perceiving them to
be but mere stage show and pageantry, he is now come over to us.
And for my part I willingly receive him, and, resolving to make
great use of him myself, command you to look upon him as a
friend." These words were soon taken hold of by those that
envied and maligned him, who strove which of them should, in
their letters to Ptolemy, attack him with the worst calumnies,
so that Ptolemy sent to expostulate the matter with him; so much
envy and ill-will did there always attend the so much contended
for, and so ardently and passionately aspired to, friendships of
princes and great men.
But Aratus, being now for the first time chosen general of the
Achaeans, ravaged the country of Locris and Calydon, just over
against Achaea, and then went to assist the Boeotians with ten
thousand soldiers, but came not up to them until after the
battle near Chaeronea had been fought, in which they were beaten
by the Aetolians, with the loss of Aboeocritus the Boeotarch,
and a thousand men besides. A year after, being again elected
general, he resolved to attempt the capture of the
Acro-Corinthus, not so much for the advantage of the Sicyonians
or Achaeans, as considering that by expelling the Macedonian
garrison he should free all Greece alike from a tyranny which
oppressed every part of her. Chares the Athenian, having the
good fortune to get the better, in a certain battle, of the
king's generals, wrote to the people of Athens that this victory
was "sister to that at Marathon." And so may this action be
very safely termed sister to those of Pelopidas the Theban and
Thrasybulus the Athenian, in which they slew the tyrants;
except, perhaps, it exceed them upon this account, that it was
not against natural Grecians, but against a foreign and stranger
domination. The Isthmus, rising like a bank between the seas,
collects into a single spot and compresses together the whole
continent of Greece; and Acro-Corinthus, being a high mountain
springing up out of the very middle of what here is Greece,
whensoever it is held with a garrison, stands in the way and
cuts off all Peloponnesus from intercourse of every kind, free
passage of men and arms, and all traffic by sea and land, and
makes him lord of all, that is master of it. Wherefore the
younger Philip did not jest, but said very true, when he called
the city of Corinth "the fetters of Greece." So that this post
was always much contended for, especially by the kings and
tyrants; and so vehemently was it longed for by Antigonus, that
his passion for it came little short of that of frantic love; he
was continually occupied with devising how to take it by
surprise from those that were then masters of it, since he
despaired to do it by open force.
Therefore Alexander, who held the place, being dead, poisoned by
him, as is reported, and his wife Nicaea succeeding in the
government and the possession of Acro-Corinthus, he immediately
made use of his son, Demetrius, and, giving her pleasing hopes
of a royal marriage and of a happy life with a youth, whom a
woman now growing old might well find agreeable, with this lure
of his son he succeeded in taking her; but the place itself she
did not deliver up, but continued to hold it with a very strong
garrison, of which he seeming to take no notice, celebrated the
wedding in Corinth, entertaining them with shows and banquets
everyday, as one that has nothing else in his mind but to give
himself up for awhile to indulgence in pleasure and mirth. But
when the moment came, and Amoebeus began to sing in the theater,
he waited himself upon Nicaea to the play, she being carried in
a royally-decorated chair, extremely pleased with her new honor,
not dreaming of what was intended. As soon, therefore, as they
were come to the turning which led up to the citadel, he desired
her to go on before him to the theater, but for himself, bidding
farewell to the music, farewell to the wedding, he went on
faster than one would have thought his age would have admitted
to the Acro-Corinthus, and, finding the gate shut, knocked with
his staff, commanding them to open, which they within, being
amazed, did. And having thus made himself master of the place,
he could not contain himself for joy; but, though an old man,
and one that had seen so many turns of fortune, he must needs