Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Lechaeum, seized upon five and twenty of the king's ships,
together with five hundred horses and four hundred Syrians;
these he sold. The Achaeans kept guard in the Acro-Corinthus
with a body of four hundred soldiers, and fifty dogs with as
many keepers.
The Romans, extolling Philopoemen, called him the last of the
Grecians, as if no great man had ever since his time been bred
amongst them. But I should call this capture of the
Acro-Corinthus the last of the Grecian exploits, being
comparable to the best of them, both for the daringness of it,
and the success, as was presently seen by the consequences. For
the Megarians, revolting from Antigonus, joined Aratus, and the
Troezenians and Epidaurians enrolled themselves in the Achaean
community, and issuing forth for the first time, he entered
Attica, and passing over into Salamis, he plundered the island,
turning the Achaean force every way, as if it were just let
loose out of prison and set at liberty. All freemen whom he
took he sent back to the Athenians without ransom, as a sort of
first invitation to them to come over to the league. He made
Ptolemy become a confederate of the Achaeans, with the privilege
of command both by sea and land. And so great was his power
with them, that since he could not by law be chosen their
general every year, yet every other year he was, and by his
counsels and actions was in effect always so. For they
perceived that neither riches nor reputation, nor the friendship
of kings, nor the private interest of his own country, nor
anything else was so dear to him as the increase of the Achaean
power and greatness. For he believed that the cities, weak
individually, could be preserved by nothing else but a mutual
assistance under the closest bond of the common interest; and,
as the members of the body live and breathe by the union of all
in a single natural growth, and on the dissolution of this, when
once they separate, pine away and putrefy, in the same manner
are cities ruined by being dissevered, as well as preserved
when, as the members of one great body they enjoy the benefit of
that providence and counsel that govern the whole.
Now being distressed to see that, whereas the chief neighboring
cities enjoyed their own laws and liberties, the Argives were in
bondage, he took counsel for destroying their tyrant
Aristomachus, being very desirous both to pay his debt of
gratitude to the city where he had been bred up, by restoring it
its liberty, and to add so considerable a town to the Achaeans.
Nor were there some wanting who had the courage to undertake the
thing, of whom Aeschylus and Charimenes the soothsayer were the
chief. But they wanted swords; for the tyrant had prohibited
the keeping of any under a great penalty. Therefore Aratus,
having provided some small daggers at Corinth and hidden them in
the pack-saddles of some pack-horses that carried ordinary ware,
sent them to Argos. But Charimenes letting another person into
the design, Aeschylus and his partners were angry at it, and
henceforth would have no more to do with him, and took their
measures by themselves, and Charimenes, on finding this, went,
out of anger, and informed against them, just as they were on
their way to attack the tyrant; however, the most of them made a
shift to escape out of the marketplace, and fled to Corinth.
Not long after, Aristomachus was slain by some slaves, and
Aristippus, a worse tyrant than he, seized the government.
Upon this, Aratus, mustering all the Achaeans present that were
of age, hurried away to the aid of the city, believing that he
should find the people ready to join with him. But the greater
number being by this time habituated to slavery and content to
submit, and no one coming to join him, he was obliged to retire,
having moreover exposed the Achaeans to the charge of committing
acts of hostility in the midst of peace; upon which account they
were sued before the Mantineans, and, Aratus not making his
appearance, Aristippus gained the cause, and had damages allowed
him to the value of thirty minae. And now hating and fearing
Aratus, he sought means to kill him, having the assistance
herein of king Antigonus; so that Aratus was perpetually dogged
and watched by those that waited for an opportunity to do this
service. But there is no such safeguard of a ruler as the
sincere and steady good-will of his subjects, for, where both
the common people and the principal citizens have their fears
not of but for their governor, he sees with many eyes and hears
with many ears whatsoever is doing. Therefore I cannot but here
stop short a little in the course of my narrative, to describe
the manner of life which the so much envied arbitrary power and
the so much celebrated and admired pomp and pride of absolute
government obliged Aristippus to lead.
For though Antigonus was his friend and ally, and though he
maintained numerous soldiers to act as his body-guard, and had
not left one enemy of his alive in the city, yet he was forced
to make his guards encamp in the colonnade about his house; and
for his servants, he turned them all out immediately after
supper, and then shutting the doors upon them, he crept up into
a small upper chamber, together with his mistress, through a
trapdoor, upon which he placed his bed, and there slept after:
such a fashion, as one in his condition can be supposed to
sleep, that is, interruptedly and in fear. The ladder was taken
away by the woman's mother, and locked up in another room; in
the morning she brought it again, and putting it to, called up
this brave and wonderful tyrant, who came crawling out like some
creeping thing out of its hole. Whereas Aratus, not by force of
arms, but lawfully and by his virtue, lived in possession of a
firmly settled command, wearing the ordinary coat and cloak,
being the common and declared enemy of all tyrants, and has left
behind him a noble race of descendants surviving among the
Grecians to this day; while those occupiers of citadels and
maintainers of bodyguards, who made all this use of arms and
gates and bolts to protect their lives, in some few cases
perhaps escaped, like the hare from the hunters; but in no
instance have we either house or family, or so much as a tomb to
which any respect is shown, remaining to preserve the memory of
any one of them.
Against this Aristippus, therefore, Aratus made many open and
many secret attempts, whilst he endeavored to take Argos, though
without success; once, particularly, clapping scaling ladders in
the night to the wall, he desperately got up upon it with a few
of his soldiers, and killed the guards that opposed him. But
the day appearing, the tyrant set upon him on all hands, whilst
the Argives, as if it had not been their liberty that was
contended for, but some Nemean game going on for which it was
their privilege to assign the prize, like fair and impartial
judges, sat looking on in great quietness. Aratus, fighting
bravely, was run through the thigh with a lance, yet he
maintained his ground against the enemy till night, and, had he
been able to go on and hold out that night also, he had gained
his point; for the tyrant thought of nothing but flying, and had
already shipped most of his goods. But Aratus, having no
intelligence of this, and wanting water, being disabled himself
by his wound, retreated with his soldiers.
Despairing henceforth to do any good this way, he fell openly
with his army into Argolis, and plundered it, and, in a fierce
battle with Aristippus near the river Chares, he was accused of
having withdrawn out of the fight, and thereby abandoned the
victory. For whereas one part of his army had unmistakably got
the better, and was pursuing the enemy at a good distance from
him, he yet retreated in confusion into his camp, not so much
because he was overpressed by those with whom he was engaged, as
out of mistrust of success and through a panic fear. But when the
other wing, returning from the pursuit, showed themselves
extremely vexed, that though they had put the enemy to flight
and killed many more of his men than they had lost, yet those
that were in a manner conquered should erect a trophy as
conquerors, being much ashamed he resolved to fight them again
about the trophy, and the next day but one drew up his army to
give them battle. But, perceiving that they were reinforced
with fresh troops, and came on with better courage than before,
he durst not hazard a fight, but retired, and sent to request a
truce to bury his dead. However, by his dexterity in dealing
personally with men and managing political affairs, and by his
general favor, he excused and obliterated this fault, and
brought in Cleonae to the Achaean association, and celebrated
the Nemean games at Cleonae, as the proper and more ancient
place for them. The games were also celebrated by the Argives at
the same time, which gave the first occasion to the violation of
the privilege of safe conduct and immunity always granted to
those that came to compete for the prizes, the Achaeans at that
time selling as enemies all those they caught going through
their country after joining in the games at Argos. So vehement
and implacable a hater was he of the tyrants.
Not long after, having notice that Aristippus had a design upon
Cleonae, but was afraid of him, because he then was staying in
Corinth, he assembled an army by public proclamation, and,
commanding them to take along with them provision for several
days, he marched to Cenchreae, hoping by this stratagem to
entice Aristippus to fall upon Cleonae, when he supposed him far
enough off. And so it happened, for he immediately brought his
forces against it from Argos. But Aratus, returning from
Cenchreae to Corinth in the dusk of the evening, and setting
posts of his troops in all the roads, led on the Achaeans, who
followed him in such good order and with so much speed and
alacrity, that they were undiscovered by Aristippus, not only
whilst upon their march, but even when they got, still in the
night, into Cleonae, and drew up in order of battle. As soon as
it was morning, the gates being opened and the trumpets
sounding, he fell upon the enemy with great cries and fury,
routed them at once, and kept close in pursuit, following the
course which he most imagined Aristippus would choose, there
being many turns that might be taken. And so the chase lasted
as far as Mycenae, where the tyrant was slain by a certain
Cretan called Tragiscus, as Dinias reports. Of the common
soldiers, there fell above fifteen hundred. Yet though Aratus
had obtained so great a victory, and that too without the loss
of a man, he could not make himself master of Argos nor set it
at liberty, because Agias and the younger Aristomachus got into
the town with some of the king's forces, and seized upon the
government. However, by this exploit he spoiled the scoffs and
jests of those that flattered the tyrants, and in their raillery
would say that the Achaean general was usually troubled with a
looseness when he was to fight a battle, that the sound of a
trumpet struck him with a drowsiness and a giddiness, and that,
when he had drawn up his army and given the word, he used to ask
his lieutenants and officers whether there was any further need
of his presence now the die was cast, and then went aloof, to
await the result at a distance. For indeed these stories were
so generally listened to, that, when the philosophers disputed
whether to have one's heart beat and to change color upon any
apparent danger be an argument of fear, or rather of some
distemperature and chilliness of bodily constitution, Aratus was
always quoted as a good general, who was always thus affected
ill time of battle.
Having thus dispatched Aristippus, he advised with himself how