Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
to overthrow Lydiades, the Megalopolitan, who held usurped power
over his country. This person was naturally of a generous
temper, and not insensible of true honor, and had been led into
this wickedness, not by the ordinary motives of other tyrants,
licentiousness and rapacity, but being young, and stimulated
with the desire of glory, he had let his mind be unwarily
prepossessed with the vain and false applauses given to tyranny,
as some happy and glorious thing. But he no sooner seized the
government, than he grew weary of the pomp and burden of it.
And at once emulating the tranquillity and fearing the policy of
Aratus, he took the best of resolutions, first, to free himself
from hatred and fear, from soldiers and guards, and, secondly,
to be the public benefactor of his country. And sending for
Aratus, he resigned the government, and incorporated his city
into the Achaean community. The Achaeans, applauding this
generous action, chose him their general; upon which, desiring
to outdo Aratus in glory, amongst many other uncalled-for
things, he declared war against the Lacedaemonians; which Aratus
opposing was thought to do it out of envy; and Lydiades was the
second time chosen general, though Aratus acted openly against
him, and labored to have the office conferred upon another. For
Aratus himself had the command every other year, as has been
said. Lydiades, however, succeeded so well in his pretensions,
that he was thrice chosen general, governing alternately, as did
Aratus; but at last, declaring himself his professed enemy, and
accusing him frequently to the Achaeans, he was rejected, and
fell into contempt, people now seeing that it was a contest
between a counterfeit and a true, unadulterated virtue, and, as
Aesop tells us that the cuckoo once, asking the little birds why
they flew away from her, was answered, because they feared she
would one day prove a hawk, so Lydiades's former tyranny still
cast a doubt upon the reality of his change.
But Aratus gained new honor in the Aetolian war. For the
Achaeans resolving to fall upon the Aetolians on the Megarian
confines, and Agis also, the Lacedaemonian king, who came to
their assistance with an army, encouraging them to fight, Aratus
opposed this determination. And patiently enduring many
reproaches, many scoffs and jeerings at his soft and cowardly
temper, he would not, for any appearance of disgrace, abandon
what he judged to be the true common advantage, and suffered the
enemy to pass over Geranea into Peloponnesus without a battle.
But when, after they had passed by, news came that they had
suddenly captured Pellene, he was no longer the same man, nor
would he hear of any delay, or wait to draw together his whole
force, but marched towards the enemy with such as he had about
him to fall upon them, as they were indeed now much less
formidable through the intemperances and disorders committed in
their success. For as soon as they entered the city, the common
soldiers dispersed and went hither and thither into the houses,
quarreling and fighting with one another about the plunder; and
the officers and commanders were running about after the wives
and daughters of the Pellenians, on whose heads they put their
own helmets, to mark each man his prize, and prevent another
from seizing it. And in this posture were they when news came
that Aratus was ready to fall upon them. And in the midst of
the consternation likely to ensue in the confusion they were in,
before all of them heard of the danger, the outmost of them,
engaging at the gates and in the suburbs with the Achaeans, were
already beaten and put to flight, and, as they came headlong
back, filled with their panic those who were collecting and
advancing to their assistance.
In this confusion, one of the captives, daughter of Epigethes, a
citizen of repute, being extremely handsome and tall, happened
to be sitting in the temple of Diana, placed there by the
commander of the band of chosen men, who had taken her and put
his crested helmet upon her. She, hearing the noise, and
running out to see what was the matter, stood in the temple
gates, looking down from above upon those that fought, having
the helmet upon her head; in which posture she seemed to the
citizens to be something more than human, and struck fear and
dread into the enemy, who believed it to be a divine apparition;
so that they lost all courage to defend themselves. But the
Pellenians tell us that the image of Diana stands usually
untouched, and when the priestess happens at any time to remove
it to some other place, nobody dares look upon it, but all turn
their faces from it; for not only is the sight of it terrible
and hurtful to mankind, but it makes even the trees, by which it
happens to be carried, become barren and cast their fruit. This
image, therefore, they say, the priestess produced at that time,
and, holding it directly in the faces of the Aetolians, made
them lose their reason and judgment. But Aratus mentions no
such thing in his commentaries, but says, that, having put to
flight the Aetolians, and falling in pell-mell with them into
the city, he drove them out by main force, and killed seven
hundred of them. And the action was extolled as one of the most
famous exploits, and Timanthes the painter made a picture of the
battle, giving by his composition a most lively representation
of it.
But many great nations and potentates combining against the
Achaeans, Aratus immediately treated for friendly arrangements
with the Aetolians, and, making use of the assistance of
Pantaleon, the most powerful man amongst them, he not only made
a peace, but an alliance between them and the Achaeans. But
being desirous to free the Athenians, he got into disgrace and
ill-repute among the Achaeans, because, notwithstanding the
truce and suspension of arms made between them and the
Macedonians, he had attempted to take the Piraeus. He denies
this fact in his commentaries, and lays the blame on Erginus, by
whose assistance he took Acro-Corinthus, alleging that he upon
his own private account attacked the Piraeus, and, his ladders
happening to break, being hotly pursued, he called out upon
Aratus as if present, by which means deceiving the enemy, he got
safely off. This excuse, however, sounds very improbable; for it
is not in any way likely that Erginus, a private man and a
Syrian stranger, should conceive in his mind so great an
attempt, without Aratus at his back, to tell him how and when to
make it, and to supply him with the means. Nor was it twice or
thrice, but very often, that, like an obstinate lover, he
repeated his attempts on the Piraeus, and was so far from being
discouraged by his disappointments, that his missing his hopes
but narrowly was an incentive to him to proceed the more boldly
in a new trial. One time amongst the rest, in making his escape
through the Thriasian plain, he put his leg out of joint, and
was forced to submit to many operations with the knife before he
was cured, so that for a long time he was carried in a litter to
the wars.
And when Antigonus was dead, and Demetrius succeeded him in the
kingdom, he was more bent than ever upon Athens, and in general
quite despised the Macedonians. And so, being overthrown in
battle near Phylacia by Bithys, Demetrius's general, and there
being a very strong report that he was either taken or slain,
Diogenes, the governor of the Piraeus, sent letters to Corinth,
commanding the Achaeans to quit that city, seeing Aratus was
dead. When these letters came to Corinth, Aratus happened to be
there in person, so that Diogenes's messengers, being
sufficiently mocked and derided, were forced to return to their
master. King Demetrius himself also sent a ship, wherein
Aratus was to be brought to him in chains. And the Athenians,
exceeding all possible fickleness of flattery to the
Macedonians, crowned themselves with garlands upon the first
news of his death. And so in anger he went at once and invaded
Attica, and penetrated as far as the Academy, but then suffering
himself to be pacified, he did no further act of hostility. And
the Athenians afterwards, coming to a due sense of his virtue,
when upon the death of Demetrius they attempted to recover their
liberty, called him in to their assistance; and although at that
time another person was general of the Achaeans, and he himself
had long kept his bed with a sickness, yet, rather than fail the
city in a time of need, he was carried thither in a litter, and
helped to persuade Diogenes the governor to deliver up the
Piraeus, Munychia, Salamis, and Sunium to the Athenians in
consideration of a hundred and fifty talents, of which Aratus
himself contributed twenty to the city. Upon this, the
Aeginetans and the Hermionians immediately joined the Achaeans,
and the greatest part of Arcadia entered their confederacy; and
the Macedonians being occupied with various wars upon their own
confines and with their neighbors, the Achaean power, the
Aetolians also being in alliance with them, rose to great
height.
But Aratus, still bent on effecting his old project, and
impatient that tyranny should maintain itself in so near a city
as Argos, sent to Aristomachus to persuade him to restore
liberty to that city, and to associate it to the Achaeans, and
that, following Lydiades's example, he should rather choose to
be the general of a great nation, with esteem and honor, than
the tyrant of one city, with continual hatred and danger.
Aristomachus slighted not the message, but desired Aratus to
send him fifty talents, with which he might pay off the
soldiers. In the meantime, whilst the money was providing,
Lydiades, being then general, and extremely ambitious that this
advantage might seem to be of his procuring for the Achaeans,
accused Aratus to Aristomachus, as one that bore an
irreconcilable hatred to the tyrants, and, persuading him to
commit the affair to his management, he presented him to the
Achaeans. But there the Achaean council gave a manifest proof
of the great credit Aratus had with them and the good-will they
bore him. For when he, in anger, spoke against Aristomachus's
being admitted into the association, they rejected the proposal,
but when he was afterwards pacified and came himself and spoke
in its favor, they voted everything cheerfully and readily, and
decreed that the Argives and Phliasians should be incorporated
into their commonwealth, and the next year they chose
Aristomachus general. He, being in good credit with the
Achaeans, was very desirous to invade Laconia, and for that
purpose sent for Aratus from Athens. Aratus wrote to him to
dissuade him as far as he could from that expedition, being very
unwilling the Achaeans should be engaged in a quarrel with
Cleomenes, who was a daring man, and making extraordinary
advances to power. But Aristomachus resolving to go on, he
obeyed and served in person, on which occasion he hindered
Aristomachus from fighting a battle, when Cleomenes came upon
them at Pallantium; and for this act was accused by Lydiades,
and, coming to an open conflict with him in a contest for the
office of general, he carried it by the show of hands, and was
chosen general the twelfth time.
This year, being routed by Cleomenes near the Lycaeum, he fled,
and, wandering out of the way in the night, was believed to be
slain; and once more it was confidently reported so throughout
all Greece. He, however, having escaped this danger and rallied
his forces, was not content to march off in safety, but, making
a happy use of the present conjuncture, when nobody dreamed any
such thing, he fell suddenly upon the Mantineans, allies of
Cleomenes, and, taking the city, put a garrison into it, and
made the stranger inhabitants free of the city; procuring, by